Grains of Sand: Photographs by Marion Patterson

This book brings together 57 of the best black-and-white photographs of Marion Patterson, who describes her work as “photographs of the intimate landscape, simple and contemplative like a zen garden.” The images focus on the natural surroundings of the central California coast and Sierra—rocks, waterfalls, creeks, trees, seashells, sand, driftwood, and kelp washed ashore by the tides—as well as images from the Southwest and the deserts of California. The book provides a quiet meditation on the beauty of our natural environment in a manner that reflects the author’s lifelong ties to the West Coast school of photography, deeply influenced by Edward Weston and Ansel Adams.

Although Patterson’s work is in some sense a virtual homage to those two giant figures, what sets it distinctly apart is her ability to use some of their stylistic and technical methods to express her own individual and deeply felt responses to the natural landscape. Where so many have understood the West Coast school as a graphic or technical exercise, Patterson has grasped the expressive language that originated in photographic modernism and has used that language to the most sincere and guileless ends.

Patterson has also contributed a short introductory essay on her photographic inspiration and techniques, and endnotes that comment on a number of the plates.