Review
"Opening this book, I seemed to step through the door of a spacecraft onto the surface of a distant, ruined planet. Its landscape was haunted with the bizarre forms and inexplicable structures of an alien civilization-their meanings lost, their uses inscrutable.
Page after page I discovered puzzling and unaccountable vistas that should have felt familiar but didn't. Whether Jan Staller's camera has transformed these landscapes or transformed the viewer I'm not certain. But I do know that he gives us a chance to travel to the outskirts of our own world...as aliens." --Terry Gilliam, Filmmaker
"Bold and mysterious, [Staller's photographs] capture silent, poetic landscapes." --The New York Times
Page after page I discovered puzzling and unaccountable vistas that should have felt familiar but didn't. Whether Jan Staller's camera has transformed these landscapes or transformed the viewer I'm not certain. But I do know that he gives us a chance to travel to the outskirts of our own world...as aliens." --Terry Gilliam, Filmmaker
"Bold and mysterious, [Staller's photographs] capture silent, poetic landscapes." --The New York Times
Product Description
On Planet Earth: Travels in an Unfamiliar Land collects Jan Staller's strangely seductive photographs from locations across the United States and around the world.-from abandoned factories to military test sites, from high-tech water-purification plants to heavy machinery that looks like it fell from outer space. Staller's square-format and panoramic photographs reveal bizarre and forgotten constructions of industrial society, set against a symphony of color and light.
A sense of mystery pervades Staller's images: ordinary building devices and machine parts take on the aura of Surrealist sculptures, while common construction sites echo the sacred grounds of ancient civilizations. Using long exposures and a combination of light sources-often photographing at dawn or dusk-Staller produces photographs that are breathtakingly rich in color and intensity.
Complementing the images in On Planet Earth is a narrative by Luc Sante, who shares Staller's fascination with urban and industrial wastelands, the history they contain, and the mysteries they conceal. Together, Staller's photographs and Sante's text offer a stimulating, Technicolor tour of the unknown at the edge of the contemporary landscape.
A sense of mystery pervades Staller's images: ordinary building devices and machine parts take on the aura of Surrealist sculptures, while common construction sites echo the sacred grounds of ancient civilizations. Using long exposures and a combination of light sources-often photographing at dawn or dusk-Staller produces photographs that are breathtakingly rich in color and intensity.
Complementing the images in On Planet Earth is a narrative by Luc Sante, who shares Staller's fascination with urban and industrial wastelands, the history they contain, and the mysteries they conceal. Together, Staller's photographs and Sante's text offer a stimulating, Technicolor tour of the unknown at the edge of the contemporary landscape.
About the Author
Jan Staller has won numerous awards for his photography, and his images have appeared in the New York Times Magazine and several other leading publications. His first book, Frontier New york, was published in 1988, and was widely and enthusiastically reviewed. In addition to his photography, Staller devotes his time to the design and fabrication of furniture, lamps, and objects. He lives in New York City.
Luc Sante is the author of Low Life, Evidence, and The Factory of Facts. He has written on photography for the New Republic and the New York Review of Books.
Luc Sante is the author of Low Life, Evidence, and The Factory of Facts. He has written on photography for the New Republic and the New York Review of Books.
