Both of these bodies are relevant for similar reasons. The most obvious reason is that they depict true American landscapes, scenes, and events, and to someone who has always lived (and continues to live) in America, it doesn't get much more relevant.
I also find his photographs to be very appealing. I am trying not to overuse the word "beautiful." Down to a single blade of grass or piece of rust, they are full of detail. This gives me a lot to look into and keeps my interest for a long time. Similarly, and in the case of American Prospects, his photographs cover a large area with a large depth-of-field. I believe that his photos depict a scene that is beautiful - but also depict it in an elegant way, using time of day (a.k.a. light) and vantage point (high above to capture more stuff). These things are what make Joel Sternfeld's photographs so appealing to me.
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| Money, Mississippi, June 1994. www.Getty.edu
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On a conceptual level, Sternfeld's photographs are largely illustrative, in a similar way to that of a journalistic photographer. He seems to be photographing places as they are day-to-day without tampering with how they look. From what I can tell, he is not setting up any extra light, or placing actors in the frame, or manipulating the landscape/scene in any way. In other words, the photographer's hand is almost nonexistent. This allows the viewer to take in the scene and focus only on what it contains. With On This Site, we need to read the commentary about the scene's history to give the photograph the extra weight (I question the effectiveness of this approach, however. When I regard Sternfeld's method of taking a static photo and pairing it with equally neutral commentary, I cannot help but feel that there should be a little more to it. Is it too simple, too obvious, to depict these locations in this manner? Does the method agree with the subject matter is represents? I do not know the answer to these questions. I simply can't shake the feeling that there could be more thought put into the process in order to best represent these horrifying stories). The strategy of almost-pure documentation of a scene makes the photographs relevant in that they are very relatable.
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After a Flash Flood, Rancho Mirage, California. American Prospects.
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This photograph, for example, allows me to take in the scene and the event that it presents to me, and then allows me to interpret it - to compare it to my own life, home, climate, and so on. The photographs speak for themselves.
On one last note, I want to talk a little about something of which I have been thinking. I have been becoming aware of how many professional photographers use the view camera to create their pictures, and I am beginning to realize why. I have never used a view camera before (and most likely never will), so I am not 100% confident in its functions, but what I've gathered from my brief research is that they allow for a lot of detail - more than you could ever get with a 35mm camera or digital camera. This must be a result of the time one must take to expose the negative, as well as the size of the negative itself. It carries a ton of information. Discovering these things about photography is fun, because I am just beginning to figure out all of the possibilities and what their specialties are. It's really just good to find these things out on your own, through experience, instead of being told.
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