The press release from the exhibition mentions that the images in this series are inspired by the late American photographer Ansel Adams. However, while Adams’s famed Yosemite landscapes are sharp, high contrast, black-and-white, and with crowded compositions that hammer in nature’s grandeur, Opie uses simple, idiosyncratic compositions that are less majestic and far more meditative. The landscapes with singular focus on a waterfall, a tree, or the huge expanse of cobalt blue in the sky are interspersed with blurred, untitled photos of Yosemite Valley, as if blinking and taking a deep breath before moving onto her next shot. Some shots may still bear echoes of Adams; as in his Mirror Lake, Morning, Yosemite National Park (1928), the reflection in the lake in Opie’s Untitled #2 (Yosemite Valley) (2015) parts the image neatly in half. But her intentional blurring shifts the focus from details to colors and the unassuming beauty of symmetry. Although Opie is similarly interested in depicting waterfalls, hers tend to be captured at a distance, or flipped upside down. Adams’s waterfalls are torrents, pouring over rocks in a way that you can almost hear their booming roar. In Rainbow Falls (2015), without closer inspection, you would hardly notice the compositional inversion. In the time that it takes for the viewer to take note of the change and try to visualize water flowing upwards, all sounds are muted, all movements slowed to a pause. It is no longer just about Yosemite in all its splendor, but more so the range of thoughts and emotions that observing nature can elicit. Opie’s version of the American wilderness is not remotely overbearing in its magnificence, but rather quiet in a way that speaks of vulnerability. 

The lack of human presence in this series may be less conspicuous than in her photography of urban landscapes. Nevertheless, this entails a lack of narrative for the viewer to latch onto and empathise with. The documentary photography that brought her to prominence in the art world often features extremely close, confrontational shots that focus solely on the person being photographed through the negation of a backdrop. Meanwhile, an emptying out of human presence is a recurring motif in her landscape photography. In a 2001 interview with Art Journal, Opie points out, “The emptiness is about loss. It’s about nostalgia . . . trying to capture, document people and places before they disappear.” In the context of nature, the emptiness conveys a longing for a time when these landscapes were untouched by mankind.