In the words of internationally renowned photographer Emmet Gowin, the landscape “is always, in some sense, our home”. For the past ten years, Gowin has used aerial photography to document man's mark on the Earth in images of industrial agriculture, mining explorations and nuclear test sites of the American West. In some sense, the aerial perspective provides the gift of seeing our own history, although known to us, for the first time. The exceptional beauty of the photographs is sometimes at odds with what they depict, and we are gently reminded that we are connected to, not separate from, these places. Gowin wishes simply to bear witness to this reality, and his work is full of reverence for life. With the recent tragic halt to nuclear non-proliferation in Asia, let us hope that this philosophy finds global expression.

This photograph, “Subsidence Craters and the Yucca Fault, Northern End of Yucca Flat, Nevada Test Site”, is part of an exhibition of Gowin's work taking place at the Pace Wildenstein MacGill Gallery in New York City until 13 June. A book of 250 of Gowin's photographs is planned.