Landslides
Among the hundreds of companies that shoot aerial photographs, the work of Cambridge, Massachusetts, based photographer Alex S. MacLean stands out for its conceptual and visual clarity. Perhaps this is the result of MacLean's training in the study of the built environment, garnered during architecture school. MacLean's work has appeared in two books, Look at the Land: Aerial Reflections on America (New York: Rizzoli, 1993), and Taking Measures Across the American Landscape (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1996), which includes essays, drawings, and landscape architect James Corner's commentary.

In his low level aerial views, MacLean has been able to dissect the built environment, focusing on specific pieces of the landscape in a way that makes the apparent jumble of the metropolitan area more intelligible. The photographs are also, quite often, extremely beautiful.

MacLean's images for the Chicago metropolitan area are presented as part of the Chicago Imagebase Project through an agreement with the University of Illinois, Chicago.

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