Photographer Emmet Gowin On Why We Should Make Ugly Things Beautiful

When I called Emmet Gowin at his home in Pennsylvania he was in the middle of having a tree transplanted in the backyard. The dogwood that had stood there before had died and had to be removed, root and stem. The birds who had roosted there “didn’t like that at all,” Gowin said, and so a white rose tree was ordered.
This seems typical of Gowin’s gentle and sensitive nature, this concern for the birds. This is the same man who encouraged his photography students to find a