Seen from above, the world’s deserts offer astonishing compositions. The American photojournalist George Steinmetz, a regular contributor to National Geographic and GEO, has hovered over them since the beginning of his career twenty-five years ago. Desert Air is the name of his new book, as well as an exhibition currently on view at the Anastasia Photo gallery in New York.

For this work, fifteen years in the making, the photographer focused on the world’s most extreme deserts, those which only receive 10cm of rain per year. Harnessed to his stable and silent paraglider, Steinmetz takes viewers on a world tour, from the Gobi desert in China and the sandy plains of the African Sahara, to the vast American deserts like Death Valley. In these sweeping orange, yellow and red landscapes, man-made structures look like small-scale models, and living things appear to be frozen figurines.

The photographs have a minimalist beauty to them. A sense of harmony emanates from the groups of animals carefully arranged in the frame. When they are absent, elements of nature take over: craters, dunes, hills, bushes, rocks. Whether they are one with the landscape, or whether present a contrast, there is a harmony that one would not dare disturb.

One might be tempted to compare this distant style to the works of Andreas Gursky, but despite a similar perspective, their approach is nonetheless different. One is more analytical while the other is more of a celebration of life and the planet’s treasures. Through its beauty, Desert Air inspires viewers to discover those treasures, and work to preserve them.

Jonas Cuénin

George Steinmetz, Desert Air
From November 3rd 2012 to March 3rd, 2013
Chez Anastasia Photo
166 Orchard Street
New York, NY 10002

(212) 677-9725

Book
George Steinmetz, Desert Air
352 pages
60$