Great Plains Studies, Center for
Date of this Version
Fall 2011
Citation
Great Plains Quarterly 31:4 (Fall 2011).
Abstract
The geography of the Great Plains defies conventions of what a beautiful landscape is supposed to be. There are no mountains, forests, or pristine streams and lakes. It is mostly a flat horizon line, broken by an occasional tree, and bodies of water are almost always muddy ponds. To the untrained eye, it appears featureless.
It takes a special understanding to appreciate its vastness and subtleties. It requires an especially acute sensitivity to be able to translate these qualities to a photographic image. Most photographers approach this landscape looking for atypical qualities, anomalies rather than the common.
Joe Deal in not one of those photographers. In West and West: Reimagining the Great Plains, Deal focuses his camera directly at the land. He breaks with the conventions of shooting with early morning or late afternoon light, using filters for dark skies and dramatic clouds, and looking for something unusual or unexpected to contrast with the emptiness. There is no romanticizing or glorifying. It is what it is.
Comments
Copyright © 2011 Center for Great Plains Studies, University of Nebraska.