A few years ago, we went to an exhibit of Alex MacLean's aerial photographs in a funky gallery of Paris' 10th Arrondissement. It was a true discovery: Arthus-Bertrand with a sharp, critical eye.
The exhibit turned into a book, Designs on the Land: exploring America from the Air -- a fantastic survey of the United States: the land, the space, the geology, and their systematic sculpting and shaping -- organized around subjects such as grid, sprawl, housing, agriculture, borders, desert, and abandonment. Here are a few appetizers. Above: pivot irrigation in New Mexico. Below: housing subdivisions in Texas and Virginia.
Buckweed harvesting in a sewage lagoon, Nevada. The US-Mexico border. Estate house in New Jersey.
Floating docks in Chicago. Longaberger Basket HQs in Newark, Ohio.
Housing oasis in the Mojave desert, California.
scans of MacLean's photos in Designs on the Land
