their look, which attempts to duplicate that of the
platinum print, rich in silver and sepia tones. Lights
and darks are not in strong contrast; gray tonalities
soften white and black areas.
Rebecca Solnit writes of the notion of the oblique
portrait, Connor’s ability to materialize spiritual
energy to get to the invisible—the energy that re-
veals a truth, either in the form of ritual offerings,
physical environments, or through human activity.
In this regard, Connor’s work is often compared to
the poetic photography of Frederick Sommer. The
all-over field of Sommer’s eccentric landscapes,
often shot in close-up details, creates a similar sur-
real tonal atmosphere.
Whereas earlier work was mostly romantic, col-
laging dream-like vignettes in exterior environ-
ments to invoke a type of reverie, from the late
1970s onward her work shifted to capturing the
petroglyphs and other Native American spiritual
sites of the West and Southwest.Great Gallery,
Horseshoe Canyon, Utah(1982),Dots and Hands,
Fourteen Window Ruin, Utah (1987), or Petro-
glyphs, Sears Point, Arizona(1985) insinuate the
physiological relationship between human exis-
tence and nature, which became Connor’s main
subject. The photographs are reminders of the
ancient and continuing life forces that underlie
contemporary experience. Images of overlaid and
intertwined hands, ‘‘Family’’ (1988) and ‘‘My
Hand with My Mother’s’’ (1987), are from the
same period, a period in which she found her
birth family.
Working more in the vein of her colleague Mark
Klett, with whom she published a 1986 portfolio
Nepal, and his Rephotographic Project, Connor’s
projects such asCritical Mass(1993), which tied
the New Mexican birthplace of the atomic bomb,
Los Alamos, to the landscape of the Pueblo Indians
or the National Endowment for the Arts-funded
photographic surveyMarks and Measures: Picto-
graphs and Petroglyphs in a Modern Art Context
(1988) stress the effects of human incursion upon
natural landmarks.
Entwined Buddha, Ayuthaya, Thailand (1988),
one of her best-known images, demonstrates this
tendency in Connor’s work. Her titles typically
read as anthropological notations where subject
and location are inseparable because the two are
more than just related; together, they are evidence
of the human (endeavor) projected as nature incar-
nate.Petroglyphs and Star Trials, Sonora, Mexico
(1991) is demonstrative in this regard. A long expo-
sure from a stationary angle causes a streaked star
pattern. Light and lens supply the frame of her
camera, which is a material space for gathering
this information, these spiritual and unifying truths
that Connor’s Buddhist training underscores.
Photographer Jack Welpott once stated that the
definition of self in nature is within the bounds of
the universe, necessarily transforming many land-
scape photographers into philosophers. Connor’s
trip to India in 1979 and later trips to Nepal, Tai-
wan, and Hawaii, reveal such religious longings.
Initially arriving in India as an observer, Connor
was intrigued by yogin religion and their common
practices. Aware that Connor is but a visitor to most
of the sites she photographs, her work may seem to
reflect the romantic leanings of nineteenth-century
photography seen in the work of Felix Teynard,
Gustave Le Gray, or Johnathan Greene. Most of
her photographs, however, are about the modern
traveler in search of religious grounding, the reason
for the pilgrimage being enlightenment or the search
for the sacred, which is not necessarily revealed by
the photographer. Her photographs capture these
sites as potent moments for significant experience
rather than merely securing the picturesque.
Connor’s cosmological and spiritual interests are
conflated in the 1997 workThe Heavens, shown at
the San Francisco Art Institute. The exhibition
included five glass-plate negatives of lunar solar
eclipses taken between 1893 and 1922 from the
archive of the University of California’s Lick
Observator in San Jose that Connor reprinted, ori-
ginal scratches and handwritten notations intact.
These vintage works were flanked by a series of
diptychs—prints of astronomical occurrences jux-
taposed by photographs of religious figures photo-
graphed by Connor. Egypt, Tahiti, Chile, the
United States, Zimbabwe, and France were cited
as locations, butThe Heavensemphasized cosmic
relationships rather than the exotic. Linda Connor
provides the best summation:
Our minds seem to be wired for some kind of beliefs or
rituals, or superstitions, some way of formulating experi-
ence that is far greater than we can deal with. To miti-
gate that experience, we ritualize it into forms that we
can relate to. And my form is photography.
(Webster 1992, 5)SaraL. Marion
Seealso:Adams, Robert; Baltz, Lewis; Institute of De-
sign; Klett, Mark; Nixon, Nicholas; Sommer, FrederickBiography
Born 1944, New York City, New York. Bachelor of Fine
Arts, Rhode Island School of Design, 1967; Master of
Science, Institute of Design at the Institute of Technol-
ogy, 1969. Professor of Photography, San Francisco ArtCONNOR, LINDA