Grey Matters

With more than seventy photographs, Grey Matter(s) collects Tom Jacobi’s striking photographs of some of the most spectacular wonders of the natural world. We’ve all stood in awe of a majestic snow-capped mountain or admired the stark beauty of a desert, but we probably haven’t seen them like this—captured early in the morning, when a reduced color palette reveals them at their most powerful and sublime.
For Grey Matter(s), Jacobi traveled over two years to six continents—North America, South America, Europe, Africa, Australia, and Antarctica—capturing indelible images of their distinct natural beauty. One contemplative photograph, taken in Namibia’s Deadvlei clay pan, depicts two dark, dead camel thorn trees standing in contrast with the parched white clay. Jacobi’s photograph of Western Australia’s Wave Rock shows what appears to be a frozen wall of water—some fifty feet high and three-hundred feet long—as though time has been made to stand still, while, on New Zealand’s nearby Otago Coast, perfectly round moeraki boulders of Maori lore appear in timeless when shot at twilight. Iceland’s Kirkjufell Mountain, which features on the book’s cover, can only be captured in reflection when there is no wind and therefore requires absolute mindfulness of the photographer. The book also features many American landscapes, including Mono Lake, Death Valley, Bryce Canyon, Monument Valley, and Arches National Park. Each of Jacobi’s photographs moves us unexpectedly from seeing the natural world through our normal detached contemplation to a more sublime appreciation of time and place, to “pure introspection,” in the words of the singer and photographer Bryan Adams, who has written the book’s thoughtful foreword.