Roger Mertin: In Minnesota, 1991–2001; pARTs
Photographic Arts, Minneapolis, Minnesota
2002 Go On Being, Our Blue Star!; Tokyo Fuji Art Museum,
Tokyo, Japan
Photographers, Writers, and the American Scene:
Visions of Passage; Museum of Photographic Arts, San
Diego, California
Selected Works
Triangle, Bermuda August, 1975, 1975 from ‘‘Altered Land-
scapes’’ series
Moonrise over Pie Pan, Capitol Reef National Park, Utah,
1977 from ‘‘Altered Landscapes’’ series
Wave, Lave, Lace, Pescadero Beach, California, 1978 from
‘‘Altered Landscapes’’ series
Picture Windows, (series) 1987
Arcadia Revisited: Niagara River & Falls from Lake Erie to
Lake Ontario, (series) 1988
View from the Villa Melzi (after William Henry Fox Tal-
bot), 1996/1997 fromPermutations of the Picturesque
series
Goodyear # 5, Niagara Falls, N.Y., 1989 fromSmokeseries
Waterfall, (series) 2000
Dr. Wadsworth’s Tree, Chautauqua, N.Y. October 1999,
2000 fromExtreme Horticultureseries
Further Reading
Bannon, Anthony. ‘‘John Pfahl’s Picturesque Paradoxes.’’
Afterimage6, no. 7 (February 1979).
Bunnell, Peter C. ‘‘Introduction.’’ InAltered Landscapes:
The Photographs of John Pfahl. Carmel, CA: The
Friends of Photography, in association with Robert
Freidus Gallery, New York (published as no. 26 in the
Untitled series), 1981.
Eauclaire, Sally.The New Color Photography. New York:
Abbeville Press, 1981.
Gauss, Kathleen McCarthy. ‘‘John Pfahl: Power Places.’’ In
New American Photography. Los Angeles: Los Angeles
County Museum of Art, 1985.
Hirsch, Robert. ‘‘John Pfahl: The Garden as Landscape.’’
The Photo Review26, no. 4, 27, no. 1 (2004).
Jussim, Estelle. ‘‘Passionate Observer: The Art of John
Pfahl.’’ InA Distanced Land: The Photographs of John
Pfahl. Organized by Cheryl Brutvan. Albuquerque, NM:
The University of New Mexico Press, in association with
Albright-Knox Art Gallery, Buffalo, New York, 1990.
Lifson, Ben. ‘‘You Can Fool Some of the Eyes Some of the
Time.’’Village Voice(March 6, 1978).
Rome, Stuart. ‘‘John Pfahl Interview.’’Northlightno. 14 (1983).
Schaafsma, Polly, and Keith Davis.Marks in Place: Con-
temporary Responses to Rock Art. Albuquerque, NM:
The University of New Mexico Press, 1988.PHOTO AGENCIES
Photo and press agencies or bureaus first emerged
as a force in photography during the 1920s. The
convergence of technical advances, especially the
introduction of small, lightweight cameras and pho-
toreproduction processes that allowed the growth of
the illustrated press, social causes—particularly war
and its disruptions—and the ideology that through
photography social changes might be enacted,
caused committed journalists and photographers to
band together. The result was the photo agency or
press bureau, a means by which photographs could
be placed in the public realm, most often through
reproduction in newspapers and magazines, and the
photographer could earn a living in a practice that
had yet to become professionalized beyond the indi-
vidual working out of a studio.
Photo agencies also arose out of the needs of gov-
ernments to provide propaganda, notably the revolu-
tionary Communist regime of the Soviet Union. In
the spirit of agitprop, which propounded the notion
that the modern technology of photography was the
appropriate medium with which to communicate
with the masses, in the immediate post-Revolution
years, the Bureau-Cliche ́was set up to supply regional
presses with photos. This agency eventually merged
with the Telegraph Agency of the Soviet Union to
form TASS. The All Union Society for Cultural Rela-
tions with Foreign Countries (VOKS) established the
RussFoto agency around the same time to serve pub-
lic relations concerns abroad. In 1931 the massive
SoyuzFoto organization was created, incorporating
VOKS and TASS. SoyuzFoto organized branches
around the U.S.S.R. and sent photographers to docu-
ment events around the Soviet empire and sent out
hundreds of copies selected photographs to domestic
newspapers as well as the foreign press.
The Communist-inspired worker photography
movement that was active in Germany from 1926PFAHL, JOHN