Joel Sternfeld (b. 1944) is an American documentary art photographer who is well known for using a large format plate camera. His work covers social issues including human impact on landscapes and run down towns. His best known work is American Prospects, a book containing images from road trips across U.S.A. from 1979 to 1986.
The images range from ordinary landscape scenes to humorous found scenes. The images have a very nostalgic feeling, a combination of bright colours and subdued autumn shades. Some are vast expanses of land with no human presence and others capture newly built residential areas or tent cities with intimate portraits of residents.
The work includes quirky characteristics of American life such as a basket ball hoop in the desert or a portable baby play pen at Glen Canyon Dam. All of the images contain a lot of detail and convey the vastnss of America. The wide landscapes have a painterly feel. In fact ‘Bear Lake’ has look like a composite of painted sky, a lake and hills in the background and a photographic image of bikers in the middle ground.
This book contains one of his famous images, ‘McLean, Virginia, December 1978’. It is a scene of a figure shopping at a farmers market stall surrounded by pumpkins, some ready to buy and some smashed up in the field. The viewers eye then moves to the background where fire fighters are tackling a large house fire. The viewers gaze returns to the market stall to find that the figure is in fact a fire fighter. The reality is this is a training exercise and not the scene of a real emergency. However it is not just a piece of glib humour. Sternfeld is making a political point about the state of America and its government. To me it is a criticism of government at not dealing with real peoples problems and tackling community issues.
One big debate about this type of photography is whether this is art. I believe this documentary style is, as the compositions contain the beauty of nature and the landscape but also offer a thoughtful message for the viewer to take away.
References
- Sternfeld, J. American Prospects (1987), Times Publishing, First Edition
Martyn Rainbird 