Umatilla County, Oregon Possibly 1978 - 1983

Robert Adams made this photograph, Umatilla County, Oregon, with gelatin silver. It’s all receding lines and fading tones: the road, the furrows in the field. It's like the negative space is eating the positive space. I feel for Adams out there in that landscape; I wonder what he was thinking, what he was trying to do, out in that dust. Was he looking for a horizon? A sense of place? A way out? There's something really bleak about this scene, but there's also a kind of stubborn hope. It makes me think about all the artists who came before him, wandering around trying to capture something real, something true. Photography and painting, they're not so different, you know? It's all about seeing, feeling, trying to make sense of this crazy world, adding to the conversation.