Wright Morris
1940
Gano Grain Elevator, Western Kansas

Gelatin silver print
Various sizes
 
Center for Creative Photography
Collection Center for Creative Photography, University of Arizona © 2003 Arizona Board of Regents
 
Morris said: "If there is a common photographic dilemma, it lies in the fact that so much has been seen, so much has been 'taken,' there appears to be less to find. The visible world, vast as it is, through overexposure has been devalued. The planet looks better from space than in a close-up. The photographer feels he must search for, or invent, what was once obvious. This may take the form of photographs free of all pictorial associations. This neutralizing of the visible has the effect of rendering it invisible. In these examples photographic revelation has come full circle, the photograph exposing a reality we no longer see."
 
Wright Morris, "In Our Image," The Massachusetts Review, vol. 19, no. 4 (1978). Reprinted in Vicki Goldberg, ed., Photography in Print (1988), 542.
 
LL/33272