Andreas Gursky’s ‘Landscapes’ Soars To Great Heights

Andreas Gursky is not afraid to go the distance for a great photo. The German photographer has spent hours in cars, planes and helicopters scouting out locations that provide the best vantage point to photograph masses of people in nature—be it on a beach, in a field or atop a mountain.

Last Saturday, the Parrish Art Museum in Water Mill opened “Landscapes,” an exhibition of 19 photographs in which Mr. Gursky captured humans and nature from different heights and vantage points to show the relationship between them. He shot them over the course of three decades during his travels across the world, according to Terrie Sultan, director of the Parrish Art Museum, where the majority of the massive photos nearly cover the gallery walls. Their sheer size is staggering.

“Whether it’s people or things that people left behind, or architecture that people created that encroached into the landscape or changed the landscape, it’s all about this notion of how humanity has interacted with nature that creates the world in which we live,” Ms. Sultan explained during a gallery talk.

While the photographer does not exclusively photograph large-scale and detailed landscapes, it is his trademark. “For me, it doesn’t matter if I deal with landscape, still life, interior or architecture,” he said in a press release. “For me, it is just so much about my view of the world.”

Mr. Gursky often takes to the sky to shoot photos, and finding the right balance between height and distance from the objects he is photographing is no easy task for the 60-year-old artist. He does credit intuition and years of experience as helpful tools.

“You can’t fly too high, because otherwise you will lose the emotion and connection. It will become a kind of Google Earth photo,” he said with a laugh during a Q&A session before the exhibition opened.

“Landscapes” will remain on view through October 18. Admission is $10 for adults and $8 for seniors. For more information, visit parrishart.org.