Jem Southam is the type of photographer that is not only one of the best artists I’ve ever seen, but he is also a photographer that I always seem to forget about when it comes to the greats. It might be that his work is somewhat delicate and quiet, or that Southam sometimes gets lumped into the realm of the New Topographics with such masters as Stephen Shore, Frank Gohlke, Robert Adams and even Joel Sternfeld. Nevertheless, Southam’s work, which is actually nothing like Shore’s or Sternfeld’s, is unique in its subjective handling of common subject matter .

Photographs by Southam remind me of a comparison between Romantic era painters Constable and Turner. While both painted from real landscapes and were influenced by the natural world, it was only Constable who produced images that seem to convey a sensitivity to his homeland. This may be why that when I’m reading Sternfeld’s American Prospects (an amazing book by the way) I get a totally different feeling than Southam’s Landscape Stories. There is a sense of a “vernacular-love” in Sternfeld’s work but Southam’s photographs are much more complex. They operate on so many different levels that I notice myself reading/viewing/worshiping his imagery for hours.

You specifically get a sense that he actually lives in the places he photographs; this is a photographer that isn’t simply visiting. Now, don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying that Southam’s photography is uniquely complex and Sternfeld’s is not, I’m simply highlighting that these are two very different approaches. This aspect can been seen when you compare American Prospects with Landscape Stories. Like most photo books American Prospects needs its size, minimalism and vivid colour, facets of a tradition that photography publishers seem to hold as the standard. Southam’s images are so subtle, so ripe with rich undertones of the uncanny and sublime, that Landscape Stories does not need to be large or devoid of text to impress.

Landscape Stories is a book that feels personal but not overtly sentimental. A book that is at once very beautiful but never too ostentatious to allow the viewer to deviate from its seductive tempo. What I find most interesting about Landscape Stories is that its design, pacing and images are not flashy or even innovative; the book simply builds upon the tested intrinsic qualities of all great photo books. This is a concept that is unfortunately rarely duplicated.

Note: I received Landscape Stories for Christmas and it has been available for a while now. This is just my own impression of a well-crafted and highly interesting work of art.

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