Two different but good books

William Fox's View Finder, treating Mark Klett, Photography and Landscape makes for entertaining and very informative reading. He treats Klett's development sin ce the Rephotographic Project, but weaves that development into a revision of la ndscape and photography.Fox is not selling Klett's vision as THE vision, but sho wing that it deserves recognition as a viable alternative to the sublime landsc ape images of other image makers.

Jack Dykinga's Large Format Nature Photography envelops the reader in Dykinga's beautiful images, his working technique, his preferences and esthetic.While the text seems only to be a tools/technique book, it also reveals how Dykinga has de veloped his esthetic to match his vision of the land he has chosen to examine.

Both books show us the very different roads taken by two of the best landscape p hotographers working today who have consistently produced excellent and thought provoking work, but who let the work speak for itself They make good reading. Bob

thanks bob - klett's earlier work was partially the inspiration for a book i did back in 1994 - "Oregon Main Street: A Rephotographic Survey" (pub by Oregon Historical Society, 1994). the entire concept of rephotography is one which i find endlessly interesting, and certainly one which displays the power of the photographic image over time. klett is one of the few who took the time to do rephotography properly, as opposed to so many "then and now" books which make no particular effort to reproduce original views. during the year-long period i spent preparing the photographs for my book, i came to understand just how difficult it can be to do accurate rephotography - i found myself having to research the types of cameras and lenses used to make the original historic photographs, and spending considerable amounts of time on-site locating exact viewpoints. in the end, it turned out to be a very compelling project, and one of the most engrossing of my career. i look forward to reading about klett's recent work.

There's a similar rephotographic project in France that sends students to seek the exact location of Atget's tripod legs and make a new picture of the scene. I believe there's a website.