The Value of Rocks

Mono Lake, January, 2018

Henri Cartier-Bresson famously said of Ansel Adams and Edward Weston, “The world is going to pieces and people like Adams and Weston are photographing rocks!”

I'd like to say, first of all, humbly, that Cartier-Bresson was underestimating rocks. Rocks are the foundation, literally the bedrock, that determine everything else about a place, what plants can live there, what animals can live there. They underlie every living thing on our planet. And Adams and Weston of course were photographing extraordinary rocks.

But I think Cartier-Bresson was wrong on another level as well. Adams reportedly responded by saying, “the understanding of the inanimate and animate world of nature will aid in holding the world of man [sic] together." Adams' work, along, of course, with that of John Muir and others, was instrumental in raising consciousness about the beauty of our landscapes. In so doing, Adams helped to protect these landscapes from destruction, to preserve them for future humans to enjoy. Yes, the settings were also stolen from the natives, but at least they did not become disasters like Niagara Falls and Key West. By photographing rocks, Adams and Weston were communicating to the world the beauty, and the value, of the scenes they were displaying.

Art is a conversation between the artist and observers. The artist displays something and asks observers to observe it. In choosing the thing to display, the artist is making a value judgment, asserting that the subject is worthy of observation, of time and attention. The subject is worthy of time and attention even though it has no other practical purpose; it is just art. Some rocks are worthy of time and attention, even though they are just rocks.

Because art makes these assertions of value, fortunately or not, intentionally or not, art is inevitably more political than we might like to think. Who could take a picture of Mono Lake, or even Lake Tahoe, today, without making a political statement? In showing photos of such places, the artist inescapably calls for their preservation and protection. Every photo is a statement that the subject was worthy of being photographed. Every photo is a value judgment. 

So let us be conscious, as photographers, of the value judgments we are making, of the messages we are communicating. And let us speak for the value of rocks.