Robert Adams

For the U.S. anthropologist, see Robert McCormick Adams Jr.

Robert Adams (b. 1937) is an American photographer who came to prominence as part of the photographic movement, the New Topography.

Adams was born in the industrial town of Orange, New Jersey, relocating to Colorado when he first started as a professional photographer. Adams became interested in documenting how the western landscapes of North American, once captured by the likes of Timothy O'Sullivan and William Henry Jackson, that had been shaped by human influence. As part of the New Topographics in the 1970s, Adams approach to photographing these landscapes was to be completely neutral, lacking any form of emotion or judgement on the subject matter. His images are titled as documents, to establish his neutral position. However, in the perceptive words of John Szarkowski, Adams... "has, without actually lying, discovered in these dumb and artless agglomerations of boring buildings the suggestion of redeeming virtue." Adams's recent essays in Why People Photograph and Beauty in Photography make strong arguments for conservative and human approaches to making photography; contradicting Adams's earlier neutral postmodern photographic style.

Adams' archives are held at the Yale University Art Gallery , with which he is devising a large-scale retrospective of his work for touring around the USA.

Famous Photographs:

• East from Flagstaff Mountain (1976).

Selected books:

• Eden (1999).
• Notes for Friends (1999).
• Why People Photograph: Selected Essays and Reviews (1996).
• West from the Columbia: Views from the River Mouth (1995).
• What We Bought (1995).
• Perfect Times, Perfect Places (1988).
• Summer Nights (1985).
• Beauty in Photography: Essays in Defense of Traditional Values (1985).
• Missouri West (1980).
• Denver (1977).
• The New West (1974).
• The Architecture and Art of Early Hispanic Colorado (1974).
• White Churches of the Plains (1970).