Emmet Gowin

Emmet Gowin, 2013, Aperture, New York

ISBN 978-1-59711-261-1

This is a beautifully produced book, giving a representative selection of work across Gowin's career from 1963 to 2004 which featured in an exhibition by Fundación Mapfre in Spain.

The work presented can be divided into a number of sections: Family (early), Italy, Mount St. Helens, Petra, aerial, and Family (later), each of which is well represented in the selection of 181 photographs in the main part of the book. There are also essays by Gowin, Carlos Gollonet and Keith F. Davis (all illustrated by further pictures), a chronology and a List of Works.

The early family pictures are for me Gowin's strongest work, there is both a simplicity and an honesty to them. He documents his wife Edith and their children and Edith's family, their houses and gardens. At first glance many could be mistaken for snapshots, but a deeper look reveals undercurrents; Edith opening her blouse to her husband while an elderly relative sits unaware in the foreground, complex expressions, ambiguous situations, the intensity of children's games.

The Italian shots don't work as well for me, despite their subtle duo tone look they feel cold compared to the earlier family work, precise but a bit clinical. The Mount St Helens pictures fare better. Again the initial impression underwhelms, but what seem to be normal landscapes reveal hundreds of shattered tree trunks scattered on the ground, at once beautiful and unexpected. You are drawn in to the incongruity, to the patterns on the ground, a theme Gowin later explored more fully in his aerial work.

The Petra photographs suffer from the same detachment as the Italian photographs, neither emotionally involving like the family pictures nor puzzlingly abstract and mysterious like the aerial work. Although in the introduction to this section Gowen refers to the colour of the landscape and the infinity of stars seen there, the work reproduced here is in monochrome and was all shot during the day, possibly a case of the vision not matching the reality. The look and feel of these pictures seems almost Victorian, if they had been dated a hundred years earlier I would not have been surprised.

The aerial work, in contrast, is successful. Many of the images could easily be abstracts or close ups, that they are straight shots of landscapes (albeit ones transformed and often damaged by the activities of man) is a jolt to the system. For example '92. Off Road Traffic Pattern along the Northwest Shore of the Great Salt Lake, Utah, 1988' could be the tracks of subatomic particles in a cloud chamber or the output from an experiment at CERN, and '93. Aeration Pond, Toxic Water Treatment Facility, Pine Bluff, Arkansas, 1989' looks weirdly like a collection of breasts. Perhaps that is appropriate, the landscape now reflecting Gowin's earlier pictures of Edith.

With ‘Landscapes Andalucía’ we are for the first time in colour. The textures work very well and most retain a pleasing abstract quality. The use of the low sun to delineate the contours of the landscape is particularly effective in '148. Montes Occidentales, Granada, Spain, 2012'.

The final photographs feature of the older Edith and silhouettes. Youthful vigour may be gone, Gowen recording his wife in thoughtful, almost melancholy moods. But the enigmatic look and the power of the earlier work still remains.

As an object the book is a pleasure to handle. A substantial hardback with a quality cloth cover and large photograph glued to the the front (I can't help but feel that the addition of a slip case would have been justified here). The paper is a thick 170g with a smooth finish and slightly creamy brown colour, which gives a pleasant look to the pictures which are reproduced rather better than many photography books manage. I bought this on spec knowing nothing of Gowin's work other than what I had read in an article in Black and White Photography Magazine and was glad I did, the work is of high quality and the book is pleasing as an object in itself. Recommended.

Favourite pictures from the book:

11. Edith, Rhode Island, 1967. A simple study, it's the expression that makes this one stick in the memory.

17. Elijah and Donna Jo Danville Virginia 1971. Children playing with a hose.

28. Edith - Danville - Virginia 1971. Edith stands in a shed. And then you realise what she is doing.

35. Edith, Chincoteague Island, Virginia, 1967. A beautiful over the shoulder study

39. Edith and Isaac, Newtown, Pennsylvania, 1974. Mother and baby.

77. Mount St. Helens, Washington, 1982

93. Aeration Pond, Toxic Water Treatment Facility, Pine Bluff, Arkansas, 1989

148. Montes Occidentales, Granada, Spain, 2012

174. Edith in Panama, Leaf Predation, 2005