Park City 2 1979

This is "Park City 2," made by Lewis Baltz with gelatin silver print. I'm immediately drawn to the monotone palette, which feels kinda stark, don't you think? Almost like a documentary, but also deeply poetic. It's as if Baltz was thinking about the act of observation itself. I imagine him setting up his camera, maybe on a hill overlooking this scene. What was he thinking? Was he curious, critical, or just trying to capture the landscape? There's this tension between the natural and the man-made. Like, here's this sprawling town nestled among rolling hills. I wonder, was he aware of other photographers, like the New Topographics folks, who were also looking at the built environment with a similar kind of detached curiosity? Artists, you know, we're all in conversation, even across time. Baltz makes you think about how we shape our surroundings, and how those surroundings shape us right back.