Cottonwoods

Trees have been a subject of lifelong engagement for acclaimed American photographer Robert Adams (born 1937), and no species has enthralled him more than the cottonwood. Revered by the Plains Indians, native cottonwoods animate the landscape unforgettably but their thirst for water and lack of commercial value have made them common targets for removal by agricultural business and housing developers. Some of Adams’ earliest pictures were of cottonwoods, and he photographed them throughout the 35 years that he lived in Colorado, beginning in 1975. Each of the black-and-white photos in the series was taken within a 50-mile radius of his home in Colorado. Originally published by the Smithsonian in 1994, this new edition of Cottonwoods has been expanded and enlarged to include an interview with Adams by Constance Sullivan.
Robert Adams has been photographing the shifting landscape of the American West for more than 50 years. The impact of human development on land has been his principal focus, as well as nature’s beauty – most notably the imperial qualities of trees. ― PDN