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# Photographing a 21st-Century Landscape When the Land Itself Is Disappearing
- URL: https://hyperallergic.com/photographing-a-21st-century-landscape-when-the-land-itself-is-disappearing/
- Published: 2014-09-23T01:42:37.000Z
- Updated: 2025-11-24T16:16:35.000Z
- Description: There's never been much of a unified scene when it comes to capturing landscapes in art, but maybe more even than before artists are very experimental with how to show a stretch of space.
- Author: Allison Meier
- Tags: Books, landscapes, Photography, Review, #wp, #wp-post, #image-position-hidden, #Import 2025-11-24 07:03 (2014, 2015, part 1)

![Gerco de Ruijter, Baumschule #001, 2010, inkjet print on Dibond, ©Gerco de Ruijter (all images courtesy Thames & Hudson)](https://storage.ghost.io/c/51/f8/51f871d8-b6be-4a73-b958-0ca4fff0110a/content/images/hyperallergic-newspack-s3-amazonaws-com/uploads/2014/09/landmarkbook8.jpg)

Gerco de Ruijter, “Baumschule #001” (2010), inkjet print on Dibond (© Gerco de Ruijter) (all images courtesy Thames & Hudson)

There’s never been much of a unified scene when it comes to capturing landscapes in art, but maybe more even than before artists are very experimental with how to show a stretch of space. The environment is only being culled back further by development, and human eyes are more frequently fixed on the universe beyond our Earth. In [*Landmark: The Fields of Landscape Photography*](http://www.amazon.com/Landmark-The-Fields-Landscape-Photography/dp/0500544336/hyperallergic-20?ref=hyperallergic.com) by William A. Ewing, released this month from [Thames & Hudson](http://books.wwnorton.com/books/detail.aspx?ID=4294982289&ref=hyperallergic.com), over 100 photographers are compiled to explore the contemporary landscape.

![Cover of "Landmark" (Courtesy Thames & Hudson)](https://storage.ghost.io/c/51/f8/51f871d8-b6be-4a73-b958-0ca4fff0110a/content/images/hyperallergic-newspack-s3-amazonaws-com/uploads/2014/09/landmarkbook9.jpg)

Cover of “Landmark” (Courtesy Thames & Hudson)

Ewing writes in his introduction to the book:

> Environmental dangers notwithstanding, there are still pleasures to be gained from landscape photographs that remind us of what we have lost, or grasp for alternative routes to the future … Each generation of photographers has a new world to contend with, full of Chekhov’s good and evil, but also full of unique pictorial possibilities.

Some of the photographs were [exhibited last year](http://www.somersethouse.org.uk/about/press/press-releases/landmark-the-fields-of-photography?ref=hyperallergic.com) at Somerset House in London, but even if you’re familiar with the more prominent names like Hiroshi Sugimoto and his grey, liminal water views, or Edward Burtynsky’s shocking industrial captures, it’s really Ewing’s curation that is most on view. Usually massive group books divide up their pages by artist; here the over 230 photographs are arranged on generously-sized pages by subjective themes. Ewing acknowledges that landscape photography is “as varied a terrain as the landscape itself,” and seems as much interested in contrasting ways of looking as creating a cohesive argument for the genre.

![Photograph by Sally Mann alongside one by David Malin in the "Sublime" chapter](https://storage.ghost.io/c/51/f8/51f871d8-b6be-4a73-b958-0ca4fff0110a/content/images/hyperallergic-newspack-s3-amazonaws-com/uploads/2014/09/landmarkbook10.jpg)

Photograph by Sally Mann alongside one by David Malin in the “Sublime” chapter

![Edward Burtynsky, "Nickel Tailings #34 and #35, Sudbury, Ontario, Canada" (1996), in the "Scar" chapter](https://storage.ghost.io/c/51/f8/51f871d8-b6be-4a73-b958-0ca4fff0110a/content/images/hyperallergic-newspack-s3-amazonaws-com/uploads/2014/09/landmarkbook12.jpg)

Edward Burtynsky, “Nickel Tailings #34 and #35, Sudbury, Ontario, Canada” (1996), in the “Scar” chapter

For example, the “Sublime” chapter has a 1998 Sally Mann photograph of an ethereal forest right by a high-definition 1984 shot of the Witch Head Nebula by David Malin, and a tree void of leaves shrouded with snow in Japan photographed by Michael Kenna in 2005, alongside a NASA Reconnaissance Orbiter Camera image of the Moon’s frigid north pole. It’s like that throughout the section, stars, and small terrestrial views hauntingly joined. Later in the apocalyptic “Rupture,” the “battered world,” as Ewing describes our planet, reveals its growing wounds, like in Pablo López Luz’s aerial of the seemingly endless sprawl of Mexico City, and in “Scar,” its mutilations, such as Daniel Beltra’s eerily beautiful overhead of a 2010 ocean oil spill. *Landmark* has quite a scope of work, and is limited by its nature, yet Ewing’s careful eye and passionate voice in his writing are compelling in uniting these disparate photographs in a continuation of the landscape genre.

![Jamey Stillings, Arizona Arch Segment, 28 April 2009, from the series The Bridge at Hoover Dam, 2009, archival pigment print on Harman Gloss Baryta 320 gsm, ©Jamey Stillings](https://storage.ghost.io/c/51/f8/51f871d8-b6be-4a73-b958-0ca4fff0110a/content/images/hyperallergic-newspack-s3-amazonaws-com/uploads/2014/09/landmarkbook1.jpg)

Jamey Stillings, “Arizona Arch Segment, 28 April 2009,” from the series “The Bridge at Hoover Dam” (2009), archival pigment print on Harman Gloss Baryta 320 gsm (© Jamey Stillings)

![Massimo Vitali, VW Lernpark 2, 2001, C-prints with Diasec mount, ©Massimo Vitali](https://storage.ghost.io/c/51/f8/51f871d8-b6be-4a73-b958-0ca4fff0110a/content/images/hyperallergic-newspack-s3-amazonaws-com/uploads/2014/09/landmarkbook2.jpg)

Massimo Vitali, “VW Lernpark 2” (2001), C-prints with Diasec mount (© Massimo Vitali)

![NASA, Ringside with Dione, 2005, NASA/Jet Populsion Laboratory/Space Science Institute](https://storage.ghost.io/c/51/f8/51f871d8-b6be-4a73-b958-0ca4fff0110a/content/images/hyperallergic-newspack-s3-amazonaws-com/uploads/2014/09/landmarkbook3.jpg)

NASA, “Ringside with Dione” (2005) (courtesy NASA/Jet Populsion Laboratory/Space Science Institute)

![Olaf Otto Becker, Ilulissat Icefjord 7, 07/2003, 69°11’59”N, 51°08’08”W, from the series Broken Line, 2003, archival pigment print, ©Olaf Otto Becker](https://storage.ghost.io/c/51/f8/51f871d8-b6be-4a73-b958-0ca4fff0110a/content/images/hyperallergic-newspack-s3-amazonaws-com/uploads/2014/09/landmarkbook4.jpg)

Olaf Otto Becker, “Ilulissat Icefjord 7, 07/2003, 69°11’59”N, 51°08’08”W,” from the series “Broken Line” (2003), archival pigment print, (© Olaf Otto Becker)

![Peter Bialobrzeski, #31, from the series Heimat, 2004, pigment print, ©Peter Bialobrzeski, courtesy Robert Morat Galerie, Hamburg](https://storage.ghost.io/c/51/f8/51f871d8-b6be-4a73-b958-0ca4fff0110a/content/images/hyperallergic-newspack-s3-amazonaws-com/uploads/2014/09/landmarkbook5.jpg)

Peter Bialobrzeski, “#31,” from the series “Heimat” (2004), pigment print (© Peter Bialobrzeski, courtesy Robert Morat Galerie, Hamburg)

![Florian Joye, Bawadi, 2006, lambda print, ©Florian Joye](https://storage.ghost.io/c/51/f8/51f871d8-b6be-4a73-b958-0ca4fff0110a/content/images/hyperallergic-newspack-s3-amazonaws-com/uploads/2014/09/landmarkbook6.jpg)

Florian Joye, “Bawadi” (2006), lambda print (© Florian Joye)

![Robert Voit, Scottsdale, Arizona, USA, from the series New Trees, 2006, C-print, ©Robert Voit](https://storage.ghost.io/c/51/f8/51f871d8-b6be-4a73-b958-0ca4fff0110a/content/images/hyperallergic-newspack-s3-amazonaws-com/uploads/2014/09/landmarkbook7.jpg)

Robert Voit, :Scottsdale, Arizona, USA,: from the series :New Trees” (2006), C-print (© Robert Voit)

[*Landmark: The Fields of Landscape Photography*](http://www.amazon.com/Landmark-The-Fields-Landscape-Photography/dp/0500544336/hyperallergic-20?ref=hyperallergic.com) by William A. Ewing is available from [Thames & Hudson](http://books.wwnorton.com/books/detail.aspx?ID=4294982289&ref=hyperallergic.com).