Earth Forms

“...Entrancing photographs of multi-colored mudhills in New Mexico, the red rock formations of Canyonlands National Park in Utah, and canyons, cliffs, and desert lands throughout California, Nevada, and Arizona.  Strom has been photographing the deserts of the American Southwest for thirty years, creating arresting images of forbidding, breathtaking landscapes containing geological formations and striking colors like nothing else on earth... His book of photographs would make the perfect gift for anyone who loves the landscape of the West.”—New West Magazine

Stephen Strom has photographed in the southwestern desert lands of the United States for more than 20 years and this book brings together, for the first time, a selection of his most powerful and memorable images.

Strom brings to this landscape the sensibilities of an astronomer who has lived in the desert for almost two decades. His photographs capture a land shaped both by the millennial forces of prehistory and also by yesterday's cloudburst. His images have the power to compress vast desert spaces in an illusion of intimacy and comprehension, presenting undulations of colour and form which appear reimagined in a light that at once penetrates and sculpts.

Published in 2009, the book Earth Forms, with essays by Gregory McNamee and Albert Stewart, is the first fine art quality monograph of Stephen's photographs. To assure images of the highest quality, Stephen was present at EBS in Verona, Italy when the final proofs were made. He and Dewi Lewis, the publisher, certified the adjustments made before each page was printed.

Desert landscapes shaped by the millennial forces of prehistory and yesterday's cloudburst.

Publishers Weekly

Starred Review.

The traditional template for landscape composition is widely inclusive: valleys, mountains, sky, clouds, people, animals, shrubbery, etc., but the photographic eye of Strom (Secrets from the Center of the World; Otero Mesa) sees natural landscapes as a medium for the exploration of form. Using the compositional vocabulary of cubism, Strom examines linear and two-dimensional relationships-lines, curves, ovoids, polyhedrons and other geographical abstractions-with painterly, square, deliberately-framed compositions. In these images, largely from the American Southwest, expanse and distance are never obvious: the sky never appears, so the mind seldom considers the view in three dimensions, perceiving instead a flat expanse. While some images celebrate the horizontal, the main focus is on the intersection of naturally occurring angular forms. Strom also uses color (often in plants) like Georges Braque and later artists: to outline, highlight, and emphasize contrasting forms and angles. With a few exceptions, these photos were taken in the desert southwest. Superfluous closing text by Albert Stewart is a prime example impenetrable contemporary art criticism, full of incomprehensible jargon. Taken on their own terms, these photos are a wonder and a challenge.
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Stephen Strom has spent his professional career as an astronomer. In 1964 received his Masters and Ph.D. in Astronomy from Harvard University. He held appointments as Lecturer in Astronomy at Harvard and Astrophysicist at the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory. More recently Strom returned to Tucson as a member of the scientific staff at the National Optical Astronomy Observatory. Gregory McNamee's articles, essays, features, book reviews, poems, short stories, and commentaries have appeared in many journals and newspapers in the United States and abroad, including The Washington Post, The Los Angeles Times, Outside, Backpacker, Sierra, Arizona Highways, Modern Maturity, and Science. He is a consultant, contributor, and contributing editor to the Encyclopaedia Britannica and its blog. Stewart's work has centered on the understanding of change and the exploration of significant developments in contemporary art. He has organized over seventy (70) exhibitions, including artists: Yves Klein, Jasper Johns, James Rosenquist, Richard Anuskiewicz, Vincent van Gogh, and William T. Wiley. Stewart has a long history in higher education with national and international recognition as an accomplished artist/curator.