Earth Forms - Tapa dura

Stephen Strom has photographed in the southwestern desert lands of the United States since 1979. This book brings together, for the first time, a selection of his most powerful and memorable images.
Strom brings to this landscape the sensibilities of an astronomer who has lived in the desert for almost two decades. His photographs capture a land shaped both by the millennial forces of prehistory and also by yesterday's cloudburst. His images have the power to compress vast desert spaces producing an illusion of intimacy and comprehension, manifest in undulations of colour and form which appear reimagined in a light that at once penetrates and sculpts.
Stephen Strom has spent his professional career as an astronomer. He began photographing in 1978 and his work, largely interpretations of landscapes, has been exhibited widely throughout the United States and is held in several permanent collections. His photography complements poems and essays in three books published by the University of Arizona Press: Secrets from the Center of the World, a collaboration with Muscogee poet Joy Harjo; Sonoita Plain: Views from a Southwestern Grassland, a collaboration with ecologists Jane and Carl Bock; and Tseyi (Deep in the Rock): Reflections on Canyon de Chelly, co-authored with Navajo poet Laura Tohe. Most recently, his work appeared in Otero Mesa: Saving America's wildest Grassland (University of New Mexico Press).

Stephen Strom has spent his professional career as an astronomer. In 1964 received his Masters and Ph.D. in Astronomy from Harvard University. He held appointments as Lecturer in Astronomy at Harvard and Astrophysicist at the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory. More recently Strom returned to Tucson as a member of the scientific staff at the National Optical Astronomy Observatory. Gregory McNamee's articles, essays, features, book reviews, poems, short stories, and commentaries have appeared in many journals and newspapers in the United States and abroad, including The Washington Post, The Los Angeles Times, Outside, Backpacker, Sierra, Arizona Highways, Modern Maturity, and Science. He is a consultant, contributor, and contributing editor to the Encyclopaedia Britannica and its blog. Stewart's work has centered on the understanding of change and the exploration of significant developments in contemporary art. He has organized over seventy (70) exhibitions, including artists: Yves Klein, Jasper Johns, James Rosenquist, Richard Anuskiewicz, Vincent van Gogh, and William T. Wiley. Stewart has a long history in higher education with national and international recognition as an accomplished artist/curator.