Cure the Blind

Joeseph Rock | Sense of Scale

Posted on July 29th, 2009 by Ben

On the south shore of Koko Nor

These photographs may not be very exciting at a glance, but you should really take the time to get to know them. They are the work of ornithologist, ethnologist, botanist, and photographer Joseph Rock. Setting off in the 20′s, Rock traveled southwestern China for the better part of 30 years.

Rock had spent 12 years deciphering religious texts of the Naxi people when his entire body of work was destroyed in 1944 by the Japanese while being shipped to Calcutta. Undaunted, Rock decided to REDO the entire project. It’s this massive determination that takes form in the grandeur of Rock’s compositions. Horizon lines, peaks, roads, and slopes are all meticulously placed to give an almost impossible sense of scale and gravity to the land.