Imagine this book to be twice as large, with a hardbound cover and gold debossed title, beautiful endpapers, head and tail bands, and a dust cover with a French fold. The inside would have glossy, coated paper throughout. Printed on this paper would be a number of carefully selected full color reproductions of landscape photographs of the Mojave Desert. The photos would have been taken with a field camera holding 8 x 10 inch negative film. The reproductions would be scanned with the latest high-end scanning device and printed at 300 lines per inch in five colors with a spot varnish. The tonal qualities and detail of the reproductions would match the originals perfectly. To explain the images and create context, there would be two critical essays by well known critics. And to lend the book credibility it would be published by a New York art book publisher or institute of photography. It would be a beautiful book, indeed.
This is not that book.
I’ve always admired Rudy VanderLans work with emigre. I even went as far as to learn about Van Dyke Parks from his book “Plam Desert”. I think the verbage above is as interesting as any critical text I’ve read in quite a while. I also think his 8 x 10 photographs of the California landscape are some of the most interesting and banal that I’ve seen. His other books; Palm Desert, Cucamonga, Joshua Tree are well worth looking at as well.
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