As 2007 began, I had five binders full of negatives in a drawer. Around 15,000 frames, and among them some very good pictures. Every time I went to the darkroom, those unprinted images weighed me down. I will never be able to print them all. So I bought a new binder, and told myself that this year I will work hard, and I will work in the present. This website is built to further that goal.

I have created this site with the New Topography in mind. This is a narrow scope, and excludes what photography is to many people: a beautiful sunset, a graceful nude, a landscape full of color and light. These are worthy subjects, and capturing them is noble work.

But the landscape I see is more honest than beautiful, and I must be honest in depicting it. I focus on a sense of place, whether it is a railroad crossing, a shooting range, or a gray beach. The places I render have been touched by humanity, and in the scope of this website, ‘place’ extends also to human perspective. A place can be both a physical location, or a vantage point from which one views the world.

As in any documentary work in the New Topography, there is a lot of darkness here. Sometimes it is actual, sometimes it is only thematic. Many feel that such a depiction of the world, one clouded by the infrastructure and conflicts of man, sacrifices beauty. I believe that if even the darkest of landscapes is rendered honestly, beauty will take care of itself.

Max Cooper
Asheville, NC
31 March, 2007