中文简介：

1975年，策展人William Jenkins注意到，许多美国摄影师都拥有类似的纪实美学——直接的、主要是黑白的城市风景照片，用一种讽刺的、有时是批判的眼光来拍摄——并将这种美学称为“新地形学”。美国摄影师Henry Wessel（1942-2018）与罗伯特·亚当斯、贝恩德和希拉·贝歇尔、刘易斯·巴尔茨、乔·迪尔、弗兰克·戈尔克、尼古拉斯·尼克松、约翰·肖特和斯蒂芬·肖尔都是这一摄影流派的成员。Wessel以美国西部的黑白照片而闻名，他的作品与詹森的描述非常吻合。在探索自然和文化交汇的领域时，Wessel自发地拍摄了日常生活中的场景，有时在这个过程中会加入一些冷幽默。然而，与其他一些新地形学摄影师不同的是，Wessel仍然相当重视形式和光线，不愿意完全放弃风格化的干预。当他穿越西部时，Wessel开发了一系列主题，包括灌木丛、停车场和海滩上的人，将平庸的主题转化为个人的诗意。

本书调查了这位摄影师的作品，汇编了他非常具代表性的图片。书中还包括美国纪实摄影界其他伟大人物的照片，如埃德·拉斯查、李·弗里德兰德和戴安·阿巴斯。

英文简介：

In 1975, curator William Jenkins noticed that a slew of American photographers possessed a similar documentarian aesthetic―direct, mostly black-and-white prints of urban landscapes, executed with an ironic, at times, critical eye―and famously dubbed this aesthetic the New Topographics. Bay Area photographer Henry Wessel (1942–2018) was counted among the group's ranks, along with Robert Adams, Bernd and Hilla Becher, Lewis Baltz, Joe Deal, Frank Gohlke, Nicholas Nixon, John Schott and Stephen Shore. Known for his black-and-white images of the American West, Wessel's work closely aligns with Jensen's description. Exploring the territory where nature and culture meet, Wessel spontaneously captured scenes from everyday life, sometimes incorporating touches of deadpan humor in the process. Unlike some of the other New Topographic photographers, however, he still paid considerable attention to form and light―unwilling to fully cede stylized interventions. As he traversed the West, Wessel developed a repertoire of motifs―including shrubbery, parking lots and beachgoers―transmuting banal subjects into a personal poetry.

Henry Wessel: Documentary Style and Beyond presents a survey of the photographer's work, compiling a selection of his most representative images. The volume also includes photographs by other great figures of American documentary photography, such as Ed Ruscha, Lee Friedlander and Diane Arbus.