Books with title Earthforms: Intimate Portraits of Our Planet

“Earthforms: Intimate Portraits of Our Planet” is a boldly original book, both in its aesthetic-scientific-political concept, and in the way it extends what we all feel we know about landscape photography. “Earthforms” is not just another book with beautiful images. It goes far beyond the standard landscape concept, to turn an aesthetic eye on mineral configurations, putting you in remote places, where these special formations are close up and underfoot. In a time when climate change threatens the livability of our planet, Simpson seeks to direct the aesthetic force of his image collection towards deepening our commitment to environmental awareness and activism, with a specific dedication to the Lakota Water Protectors’ courageous 2016 confrontation of the corporate and state powers that laid an oil pipeline that threatened the local water source."Simpson flirts with chaos repeatedly, complicating the easy sensual analogies and undercutting the all-too-familiar 'surprises' of high-end nature photography.”—LYLE REXER, author; critic, curator; columnist for PHOTOGRAPH magazine.“Simpson has an eye for naturally occurring patterns and structures, and he presents vivid mineral deposits and eye-catching rock formations. He compares a particularly notable formation to Edvard Munch’s painting The Scream, and it’s hard to deny the resemblance. The captions are informative and will help geological novices understand how the shapes developed. They also offer references to the works of other artists, and their placement in the book’s final pages effectively allows readers to process the images separately. Although the environmentalist message is strong in the opening essays, Simpson’s later commentary emphasizes natural beauty without reiterating the threat that it faces, letting readers draw the connection themselves.”—KIRKUS REVIEWS

"[A]n outstanding and beautiful compendium of landscape photography that borders on fine art....A visual joy to browse through page by page...this superbly crafted and assembled volume of geological photography by Joel Simpson is a very highly recommended addition to community, college, and university library Contemporary Photography collections and the supplemental curriculum lists of student geologists.-MIDWEST BOOK REVIEW. "Simpson flirts with chaos repeatedly, complicating the easy sensual analogies and undercutting the all-too-familiar 'surprises' of high-end nature photography."-LYLE REXER, author; critic, curator; columnist for PHOTOGRAPH magazine. "Simpson has an eye for naturally occurring patterns and structures, and he presents vivid mineral deposits and eye-catching rock formations."-KIRKUS REVIEWS. Award-winning International photographer Joel Simpson distills the best of 15 years of world-wide geological photography into a boldly original book that... FRAMES rock formations as compelling abstract art, expanding the approach to landscape photography; EXPLORES settings such as honeycomb-like tafoni, dried desert mud, littoral reefs, rare cave formations, and shore granites as powerful compositions; VISITS wide-ranging locales, including Mongolia, Madagascar, Ireland, Wales, Vietnam, Iceland, Sardinia, Newfoundland, Turkey, and Jordan, in addition to remote locations in the US and Canada; INCLUDES essays by Daniel P. Sheehan and Chase Iron Eyes that tell the dramatic story of the Lakota Water Protectors and their courageous fight against the Dakota Access Oil Pipeline; and OFFERS extensive field notes in the back of the book that describe geological settings and cultural references. Not a conventional landscape book.