Gowin, Emmet. Changing the Earth. Photographs by Emmet Gowin. Signed.

Yale University, 2002. 1st edition. SIGNED by Gowin. Texts by Jock Reynolds, Terry Tempest Williams, and Philip Brookman. Gowin's aerial photography explorations in the United States of military test sites, missile silos, ammunition storage and disposal facilities, coal mining, pivot irrigation, off road motor traffic, et al.  Also includes battlefields of Kuwait, new golf courses in Japan, and the chemo-petrol industries of the Czech Republic. Issued in conjunction with a major traveling exhibition. Large hardcover with protected dust jacket. Like new.  Summary:

Changing the Earth: Aerial Photographs is a landmark monograph and exhibition catalog published by the Yale University Art Gallery in association with the Corcoran Gallery of Art. The book serves as the first comprehensive survey of Emmet Gowin's extensive aerial photography, representing a major thematic shift in his career from intimate family portraits to expansive, globally significant landscape studies.

• Documenting the Anthropocene: Spanning over two decades of work, the book compiles aerial photographs taken from planes and helicopters using a gyroscopically stabilized camera. It documents the visible, dramatic scars left on the Earth's surface by human activity, including nuclear test sites, missile silos, strip mines, pivot irrigation systems, and industrial waste dumps.

• The Genesis of the Project: Gowin's interest in aerial views began when he was commissioned to document the devastation of the Mount St. Helens eruption. His perspective permanently shifted during a flight over the Hanford Nuclear Reservation in Washington, prompting a sixteen-year exploration of militarized, scarred, and heavily industrialized landscapes.

• The Duality of Beauty and Devastation: A central focus of the work is the tension between aesthetic elegance and environmental ruin. Reproduced in exquisite, hand-toned quad-tones, Gowin’s images initially resemble abstract expressionist paintings or delicate organic patterns, only for their disturbing reality to be revealed through clinical titles like "Weapons Disposal Trenches" or "Effluent Holding Pond".

• Geographic Scope: The monograph covers scarred topographies across the globe, featuring images from the American West, the coal mining districts of the Czech Republic, and the battlefields of Kuwait.

• Textual and Artistic Dialogues: The volume is enriched by curatorial essays from Jock Reynolds and Philip Brookman, alongside a poignant, personal interview with Gowin conducted by the celebrated environmental writer and activist Terry Tempest Williams.

• Emmet Gowin is an influential American photographer and educator celebrated for his deeply intimate family portraits and pioneering aerial landscape photography. Born in Danville, Virginia, Gowin studied under Harry Callahan at the Rhode Island School of Design, where he developed an artistic vision that seamlessly blended personal intimacy with technical experimentation. For nearly four decades, he captured arresting black-and-white portraits of his wife, Edith, and their extended family, frequently using a circular-lens format that lent his domestic scenes a quiet, mysterious, and gothic intensity. Later in his career, Gowin transitioned to aerial photography, documenting environmental scars, military test sites, and volcanic devastation to explore human impact on the Earth. A dedicated mentor, he taught at Princeton University for thirty-six years and published several landmark monographs, including his self-titled debut Emmet Gowin: Photographs and Changing the Earth.