Thoughts on Legacies by Sam Elkind
A twist on a classic by Sam Elkind on exhibit now at Albuquerque’s Open Space Visitor Center. Photo by Clarke Condé.
Contemporary landscape photography is often plagued by the type of photographer that heads out into the American West to find the exact spot where Ansel Adams or some other such person made a famous photograph. They will seek out the exact tripod holes in the ground (sometimes even finding them there in the dirt left by some previous photo-geocacher with a similar goal) in order to recreate the same photo. Don’t think for a moment that it is like Hunter S. Thompson retyping The Great Gatsby to get the feel of the words. It is lamer.
Photographer Sam Elkind is not that sort of photographer. He tries to show a bit of his own perspective on the American West through his work. Many photographers just like Elkind are not lame and do in fact have their own perspective, but Elkind’s approach is worth a second look not simply because he offers a counter-narrative to the John Ford view of the American West, but because he does it in such a gentle way.
In the current exhibit, Legacies, on display now through September 24 at the gallery at Albuquerque's Open Space Visitor Center, Elkind continues his ongoing personal narrative about the human impacts on our landscape. While many photographers trying to express the view that the American West is being destroyed by humans would take the obvious root and seek out the nearest trash pile or bird strangled by a six-pack ring, Elkind renders monochrome images that try to make the point subtly, without the ugliness.
In “Monuments,” for example, Elkind takes a famous scene available to anyone visiting the Monument Valley parking lot and backs up enough to show the fireplug, in effect adding a fourth monument to the often-photographed landscape. While his idea may be to show exploitation by humans upon the landscape, the result is not nearly obnoxious enough to convincingly do so. It is just a little twist, adding to the story, not highlighting a flaw.
How visitors experience The West is as subjective and individual as they choose to make it. How those of us that live in The West experience it a bit more matter of fact. Elkard’s work charts a middle path not easily done photographically. These are fine art prints, suitable for collectors that don’t want to shock their guests.
As an aside, I think I found the spot where he took this shot on Google Maps, just up from the Monument Valley Tribal Park Visitor Center by the cabin rental office, a little north from where Ansel Adams made his own “Monuments.” Now if I ever find myself in that parking lot, I’ll look for the tripod holes in the dirt there, too. I'm probably not going to take a photo though, but maybe I’ll get a snack from the nearby frybread stand, ironically.
Legacies
Photographs by Sam Elkind
Through September 24