Listening to the river

Listening to the River is a celebration of anonymous places where we can still find nature's beauty. Robert Adams first visited these particular locations as a boy, when the West seemed unchanging. Now in his fifties, he returns to them with the affection of a longtime acquaintance. The book records hushed walks when irrelevancies are forgotten, when sunlight makes the fields, hills, and roads new. Adams has chosen twelve poems by William Stafford to accompany the pictures. Both photographer and poet observe a practice of quiet in the out-of-doors, and both discover there a promise. This is an optimistic book, though not a sentimental one: a number of the photographs record views of the suburban West. "Any tree in the path of development appears to have an uncertain future," Adams observes. Listening to the River affirms, however, that trees and other elements of nature are ultimately protected. "Part of what their beauty means," says the photographer, "is that they are safe."