Adrian Gaut: Skeleton Coast

The Skeleton Coast in Namibia has long been synonymous with the untamed and the other-worldly. It exists vividly in the dreams of surfers, who lust after its perfect, empty waves, and in the nightmares of sailors, some of whom ran aground in this inhospitable expanse of shift-ing dunes only to find themselves terrifyingly isolated, scattered among the bleached whale bones and shipwrecks, all long ago picked clean. Sometimes referred to as the ôGates of Hellö by Portuguese explorers, the Skeleton Coast has to this day has resisted settlementùmuch less developmentùand it is precisely this desolationùthe raw and primal quality of the landscapeùthat captivated photographer Adrian Gaut. In his second monograph, Gaut has cultivated a unique approach to making pictures of this expanse of rugged beauty. The pho-tographs in this book, often bordering on the abstract, have all been made while traveling in a small, single-prop airplane between Swakopmund and points south.