This is one of my favourite photographs.

Taken by Robert Adams, it exemplifies his masterful black-and-white photography, which over the past forty years has chronicled the changing landscapes of the American West. His images, often sparse or entirely absent of people, nonetheless speak volumes about human presence—revealing it through littered roadsides, razed forests, and unfinished homes.

A quiet tension runs through Adams’s work: the stark contrast between the beauty of natural light and land as captured by his lens, and the visible scars left by human interference.

His photographs subtly undermine the romanticised myth of Manifest Destiny, exposing its emptiness. They offer a quiet but powerful critique of the enduring belief that the American West is an inexhaustible resource, free to be claimed and consumed.