Early in the morning, before breakfast and the beginning of the workday, photographer Jem Southam takes to the countryside of southwest England, visiting and revisiting the hills and dales of Bristol, Cornwall, Devon, and Somerset. His lyrical photographs of these places, taken in series over several years, chart the subtle evolution of this picturesque countryside as it has been transformed by both natural processes and human intervention. Ostensibly topographic and descriptive, each achieves a greater power thanks to an allegorical language that draws on our collective imagination. <P>"Landscape Stories is the first comprehensive collection of Southam's work, drawn from three completed series: "The Pond at Upton Pyne, "The Red River, and "Rockfalls, Rivermouths, and Ponds, along with several smaller groups of pictures from series still in the making. Southam's brief narratives about each site--"together with essays by Gerry Badger and Andy Grundberg, which examine Southam's work from European and American perspectives, respectively--"create a rich context for viewing these remarkable, large-format photographs.

"Insisting that 'a landscape is never innocent,' Andy Grundberg's introductory essay for this hefty book captures perfectly the suspicious yet oddly playful mood of this atmospheric collection. British photographer Southam's thought-provoking works relay their own stories and attest to his following in the footsteps of early 20th century British landscape photographer Peter Henry Emerson, whose work is known for standing 'in opposition to the industrialization and urbanization that were then transforming the economic and social fabric of life.' While much of Southam's work is also preoccupied with its own wink-wink brand of social commentary-evidenced by photos of abandoned mine shafts and confined songbird cages in a zoo-he has an eye fine-tuned to the nuances of country life's quietude: a photograph of recently cracked eggs, their orange yolks exposed for judging at a poultry show, is intriguing, while gentle studies of verdant barnyard scenes shot over a series of months chart the landscape's evolution. Particularly interested in areas once dominated by industry that have since been abandoned, Southam captures the scarred countryside's slow return to nature." Publishers Weekly (Copyright Reed Business Information, Inc.)

Born in Bristol, England, in 1950, photographer Jem Southam describes himself as a product of postwar optimism and Cold War paranoia. Shaped by these cultural forces, together with the vestiges of English romanticism and west country non-conformism, his serial work has slowly taken form over the past twenty years.