Astoria, Oregon 2007

Robert Adams made this photograph, Astoria, Oregon, with a camera, lens, and silver gelatin. You know, the great thing about photographs is that they are never just what they seem. Look at the surface, the range of grays. They’re not just neutral, they carry mood. They’re soft and almost romantic. Then you notice what's actually in the frame – a pretty ordinary urban landscape, cars, buildings. But then there's that A-frame sign. It’s advertising something, but it's turned just enough to face us, the viewers. I am drawn to the placement of the sign, a formal decision which creates layers, and makes me ask what the subject of the image is. Is it the town, or the sign? Or the suggestion of something else, something invisible? Adams has this knack for finding poetry in the everyday. He reminds me a bit of Walker Evans, another photographer who found beauty in the mundane. But Adams is his own guy, and this photograph, like all good art, invites us to linger, to look closer, and to see the world a little differently.