Pirkle Jones: California Photographs, 1935-1982

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Summary: Both A Photographer of Human Struggle and of Natural Beauty
Review: Pirkle Jones is a photographer who has been photographing in California for most of his career. At one time he was a personal assistant to Ansel Adams in the 1950's and a close friend of Edward Weston as well. But aside from the traditional West Coast Style of Black and White Photography he was introduced to by working for and knowing some of this countries greatest photographers, Pirkle is a man of his convictions and he passionately pursued issues of his time with dignity and beauty. Whether he followed the tireless efforts of the migrant worker or The Black Panthers cry against a system of injustice , or the more optimistic dreamings of the Gate 5 series (in the Sausalito Marina, Marin County, CA) where he photographed the California Hippie Movement; each series and others, were made with the same passion and technique so long associated with the Western Coast Landscape ethic.

But Mr. Jones not only pursued these movements but was, himself, a photographer of the land and its many components that are seen less on a grand scale and more from a "spiritual" outpouring of his love for the nuances of life found in the details of the land.

While this book does not focus on these aspects of his career, it instead choose to display his works which faced the troubles and radical changes of a unique and vigorious time in America ...a time that only Pirkle Jones and Aperture could collaborate on as a quintensential 50th Anniversary Publication of a Photographer, a philosopher, and a gentle man. A photographer whose strength and convictions were elegantly made for the time in which they occured and for the furture. It is a testament that future generations will NEED to look back at. A time when America was at its strongest. When its vigor and struggle to remain a place of freedom of speech and participatory Democracy Pirkle was not just there taking pictures, he was an integral part of this time, MAKING photographs.

This is a book every serious photographer, philosopher, historian, and a lover of the human condition must own.