Abstract
At its broadest level, Land Matters evaluates the engagement of photographers with the subject and genre of landscape and is inspired by the increasing significance of this photographic subject since the 1990s. The work refers to the subject of landscape photography across the history of the camera but focuses on contemporary practices through which landscape photography is produced, displayed and consumed. In its argument the book ranges across North America and Europe, meaning that the scope is wide for what is quite a short book (302 pages of argument, including 89 half or full page illustrations).
The book is a useful overview of the landscape work of photographic artists and draws out how creative photographers are engaging with the politics of landscape and its representation at a time when, to indulge Wells’ acknowledged play on words, land matters a great deal culturally, socially and politically. As such, Land Matters highlights the interest many photographers have in who develops landscape imaginaries, what tools are used and why the landscape is put to socio-political use. It also points to the photographic fraternity’s current preoccupation with land because of popular ecological, social and geopolitical concerns.
Such concerns run through each substantive chapter, which consider American settlement, the evolution on the American west, the complex conceptualization of the rural in the UK and the articulation of national identity through landscape in northern Europe. These are bookended by a theory-heavy introduction and a conclusion, which considers landscape photography in relation to the passage of space and time. Overall the result is engaging and informative but there is a persistent sense that each chapter is also a book in its own right.
The theoretical frameworks deployed in Land Matters will be unsurprising to many cultural geographers given that the politics and meaning of landscape have been explored extensively by geographers, often through the visual mode. Indeed, the debt of Land Matters to cultural geography is notable, with the works of Doreen Massey, David Matless, James Ryan and others playing a significant role in the framing of Wells’ arguments. As such, while the book may not surprise many geographers, it does attest to the value cultural geography adds to those disciplines with which it intersects.
In summary, Land Matters offers geographers little new in terms of its approach to landscape but Wells’ discussion and dissection of photographic practice does enrich the critical tools and vocabulary of many geographers conducting photographic research. Due to its breadth, the book engages but does not satisfy entirely. However, this negative is silver-lined as the book inspires and suggests as to where further work can be done. Finally, Land Matters represents an unusually beautiful academic text (even in paperback) and, given the work’s value as an exercise in visual critique, alongside its ability to inspire, it is to be recommended.