Robert Adams : Our lives and our children: photographs taken near the rocky flats nuclear weapons plan : Adams, Robert by By UNKNOWN


Robert Adams : Our lives and our children: photographs taken near the rocky flats nuclear weapons plan : Adams, Robert
Title : Robert Adams : Our lives and our children: photographs taken near the rocky flats nuclear weapons plan : Adams, Robert
Author :
Rating :
ISBN : 9783958290976
ISBN-10 : 978-3958290976
Language : English
Format Type : Hardcover
Number of Pages : 160 pages
Publication : Steidl

One day in the early 1970s, Robert Adams (born 1937) and his wife saw from their home a column of smoke rise above the Rocky Flats Nuclear Weapons Plant, near Denver, Colorado. For an hour they watched the plume grow and experienced a sense of helplessness before what appeared to be a nuclear accident in progress. Ultimately it was announced that the fire was burning outside the plant, but Adams decided to try to picture what stood to be lost in a nuclear catastrophe. He photographed in Denver and its suburbs; the individuals shown were within hazardous proximity to the Rocky Flats Plant. The new Steidl edition of Our Lives and Our Children presents an expanded sequence that retains the potent compactness of the first edition (out of print for nearly three decades).

Robert Adams : Our lives and our children: photographs taken near the rocky flats nuclear weapons plan : Adams, Robert Reviews

  • Dennis Witmer

    Back in print after than 30 years, this is one of Robert Adams most challenging books. At first glace, it appears to be a book of rather poorly executed street portraits, and one wonders why a book like this was even published. The afterword, written during the height of the cold war (at that time, Reagan was proposing a missile shield, giving the US first strike capability), establishes the context for the photographs they were all made near the Rocky Flats Nuclear Arsenal where the triggers for nuclear warheads were assembled. Adams writes about how it seems likely, that either by intention or accident, these warheads will detonate, and kill hundreds, thousands, or millions of people. What he does not state explicitly, but implies, is that those responsible for making these weapons are the subjects of his photographs: ordinary people going about their lives, but living close to, and benefiting from the jobs and wages earned by making weapons of mass destruction.Given the current concern about nuclear warheads developed by north Korea, and the less than steady fingers on our own button, this book seems to be suddenly new again.I have long thought that this is either Robert Adams best book, or his worst I can't figure out which. It certainly is a powerful example of how a well written, brief statement can change the meaning of a group of photographs. I think his afterword is one of the most stunning essays I have ever read.Copies of the 1983 printing of this book have long been hard to find the new version is beautifully printed by Steidl.