“Water is the driving force of all nature.” ~Leonardo da Vinci
By Suzanne Révy and Elin Spring
It is possible that life began within a tiny drop of water. It courses through the veins of our planet and carves out the mountains, valleys and oceans in and around the continents. And each human being begins its life within the warm waters of the womb. On top of all that, it is one of the most beautiful and confounding phenomena to photograph. Four recent photography books explore the unique properties of water in myriad forms. They are Water a compilation of photograms by Adam Fuss, Littoral Drift+Ecotone an unusual book of cyanotypes by Meghann Riepenhoff, The State of Water featuring Brad Temkin’s images of water treatment facilities and Florida’s Changing Waters: A Beautiful World in Peril a series of landscapes by Lynne Buchanan.
Adam Fuss is known for his large scale photograms featuring rippling waves, slithering serpents and wriggling babies. His book, “Water,” brings this large opus together. It opens with several early works that show concentric circles of watery waves which somehow recall the heaven’s and the earth’s rotation around the sun. In addition, these natural constellations bring Berenice Abbot’s photographic studies of soundwave lengths to mind. Though Abbott’s work is more clinical, Fuss conjures a palpable sense of the sounds of splashes or the deep tones of underwater vibrations such as those made by whales and dolphins. The sequence includes several visual breaks from the more abstract patterns to include images of snakes sliding or babies squirming in a shallow tray of water, which imbues the book with Biblical themes. Water has long been used in baptismal rituals to cleanse the soul and wipe away evil. By juxtaposing the serpent with a baby, Fuss introduces the idea that humans can and have pursued knowledge; we strive to understand nature and to question whether or not we are alone among the stars. These works are deceptively simple, weighted with the abstraction of physics alongside an abiding sense of a celestial presence in a vast universe.
Like Fuss, Meghann Riepenhoff is making cameraless works, but she is allowing the water to interact with paper and shift the tones and colors of her large scale cyanotypes in a two-part volume called Littoral Drift+Ecotone. Cyanotypes are one of the oldest photographic processes; they are simple to make, requiring paper, two light sensitive chemicals and water to process and fix. Having seen Riepenhoff’s work in several exhibitions, I was skeptical that they would translate into a book, but its unusual design with a “do-si-do” binding, and well reproduced plates retain the “objectness” of each print. “Littoral drift” is a geological term which describes the movement of waves and sand at water’s edge. In this half, Riepenhoff presents cyanotypes that were created along beaches where waves would wash over her chemically treated paper. An “ecotone” is a transition between two ecosystems, such as a marsh between the land and a river. In this series, Riepenhoff drapes light sensitive paper on trees, windfall branches, fences or even trashcans and allows rain to flow over the paper to fix rivulets and undulating streams across the surface.
Like the journey that water takes through nature from solid to liquid to gas, the “two” books begin and end seamlessly. Riepenhoff takes readers on a kind of hike from beaches to mountains with work that is deeply rooted in a reverence for changing weather, the march of time and ever shifting landscapes. Working in concert with nature, she pushes the medium of cyanotype to its limit, crafting layered textures of sand, rain, snow and fog. Her compositions, particularly those in “Littoral Drift” recall the paintings of abstract expressionists such as Helen Frankenthaler or Paul Jenkins, and the human elements seem to appear in the spines and delicate veins or tributaries of the “ecotone” cyanotypes. There is a fragility and an impermanence implied here, and indeed, many of these cyanotypes are not fully fixed and will continue to shift in tone. There are two accompanying booklets: the first with an essay by Joshua Chuang and an interview with the artist by Charlotte Cotton; the second features a selection of photographs that reveal Riepenhoff’s process and in one case, the changing and shifting colors of a cyanotype over a period of several hours.
In contrast to Fuss and Riepenhoff, Brad Temkin takes a more documentary approach in his book The State of Water. In it, he uses large format to create paradoxically elegant compositions of industrial infrastructures at water treatment facilities around the country. Based in Chicago, Temkin became interested in water management systems through an earlier project about rooftop gardens. Most people take for granted the free flow of clean water from the tap, but how water is processed before it reaches us remains largely unseen. Temkin secured permission to photograph the storm drain and sewer known as the Deep Tunnel under Chicago. His ominous image of it takes over a large spread in this vertically oriented book. Leafing through the pages, it is clear that Temkin is as interested in form, line, texture and light as he is in the the functions of these structures. Like Riepenhoff, his images take on an expressionistic and painterly quality with the flow of water over concrete and through aging rusted pipes. Through abstraction, Temkin transforms these hidden utilitarian systems into a photographic homage to ingenuity. He offers simple technical captions and a glossary at the end of the book, which suffices as a statement. There is an accompanying booklet, which offers a conversation between Ann Wilkes Tucker and Temkin.
The transformative power of water becomes an environmental cautionary tale in Lynne Buchanan’s “Florida’s Changing Waters: A Beautiful World in Peril.” With the passion of an investigative reporter, Buchanan documents the fragile state of flora and fauna in imminent danger of devastation from the poisoning of Florida’s springs, wetlands, rivers and coastal waters. Of course, our human encroachment has delivered this death threat and only we can reverse it. Buchanan and two environmental scientists make the case in the book’s essays, but it is Buchanan’s imagery that brings it home. Hovering just above and below the waterline, Buchanan’s alluring vistas align physically and emotionally with an inhabitant’s perspective. In topographic images, swirling fluorescent green becomes a terrifying abstraction as water meets the shore. But perhaps it is her most intimate views – a lone, tenacious mangrove branch, a glittering veil of midges caught in sunlight, two playful manatees tousling just below the water’s surface – that plead the ultimate cause for urgency in Buchanan’s ode to one of our nation’s most precious ecosystems.
Water by Adam Fuss with an essay by Carter Ratcliff
Published by Damiani, 2018
https://www.damianieditore.com/en-US/product/664
Littoral Drift+Ecotone by Meghann Riepenhoff
Texts by Charlotte Cotton and Joshua Chuang
Co-published by Radius Books and Yossi Milo Gallery, 2019
https://radiusbooks.org/books/meghann-riepenhoff-littoral-drift-ecotone/
The State of Water by Brad Temkin
Conversation with Anne Wilkes Tucker
Published by Radius Books, 2019
https://radiusbooks.org/books/brad-temkin-the-state-of-water/
Florida’s Changing Waters: A Beautiful World in Peril
Photographs and text by Lynne Buchanan
Essays by Jason M. Evans and Robert L. Knight
George F. Thompson Publishing, 2019
https://www.casemateipm.com/florida-s-changing-waters.html#.XVVNV1B7mjg