Utopia/Dystopia.

Gary Watson is a former lecturer in Chinese studies at Queen’s University and is now a multimedia developer in Mississauga.

A strong presence in Canadian and international photography since the 1970s, Geoffrey James presents some of his best works in this handsome volume published in conjunction with a 2008 retrospective of his images at the National Gallery of Canada. Through 87 images made between 1982 and 2007, Utopia/Dystopia shows James’s work thematically with photographs of old continental gardens, Paris, Toronto, trees, and Canadian locations ranging from Lethbridge to Asbestos.

Utopia/Dystopia traces James’s development as an observer and photographer of manmade landscapes ranging from European and American formal gardens to mining tailings to the barrier walls along the U.S./Mexico border. Although his images rarely include people, they eloquently capture the energies of the societies that produced landscapes as varied as the Roman Campagna and Toronto’s 905 suburbs. James sees beauty and decay as coexistent and never shrinks from showing how landscape, whether Baroque or post-industrial, mirrors its society with sometimes painful accuracy.

Complementing the stunning black and white images in Utopia/Dystopia are three introductory essays by Stephen Bann, Britt Salvesen, and Lori Pauli, curator of the James retrospective. All bring critical insights and interpretive innovations to their assessments of the images that greatly enhance an understanding of James’s work and his place in contemporary photography.

James’s images are richly reproduced in all their monochrome depth. The only basis for complaint concerning their presentation is size. Although James did not always feel compelled to present his work in massive prints, his signature works—the stunning panoramic garden portraits—really need a larger format book to show their scope and tonal range.

Utopia/Dystopia strikes a near-perfect balance between image and interpretation in a photo book. As such, it presents Geoffrey James as a preeminent member of the growing ranks of Canadian landscape photographers.