Area of Mt St Helens, 1980

Not everything has to be beautiful to be the subject for art. These are not beautiful landscapes. These are the blasted aftermath of the Mount St. Helen's volcanic eruption. But these photographs are also more than mere documentation. They are affecting visions provided us by an artist who took his selective vision to a place we were unlikely to go and returned to share his view with us. In one way or another, that is what most artists do.