Joel Sternfeld
American Prospects
- PhotographerJoel Sternfeld
FELIX ODELL Joel Sternfeld’s American Prospects showcases his excellent use of color photography, shot on an 8×10” camera. It’s a detailed and timeless document, with framing that recalls classical landscape painters and early photographers. He was one of my first inspirations as a photographer. The way he worked with his 8×10” camera — composing and discovering ordinary situations that tell a complete yet open-ended story — is remarkable, full of detail and bathed in magical light.
The project
Joel Sternfeld’s American Prospects (1987) emerged from a years-long journey across the United States in the late 1970s and early 1980s, during a time of cultural change, suburban expansion, and shifting landscapes. In 1978, Sternfeld was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship, and he used the grant money to buy a Volkswagen minibus, which became both his transport and base as he traveled the country with an 8×10” view camera. Influenced by 19th-century American landscape painters and large-format photographers like Walker Evans and Stephen Shore, he set out to merge the grandeur of classical landscape with the layered, often ironic social detail of contemporary life. Working slowly and deliberately, he composed scenes where the beauty of the land coexists with subtle, sometimes humorous or unsettling human narratives. The resulting images capture an America in transition — balancing optimism and unease, nature and encroaching development — and reflect on the relationship between people and place. Upon its release, American Prospects was celebrated as a landmark in color photography, helping to establish the medium as a serious form of fine art.
