I discovered John Pfahl in college when I was obsessed with "Environmental Art Photographers"; he wrote the foreword to Edward Burtynsky's book "Manufactured Landscapes," I think. His photography is amazing, dealing mostly with landscapes of various types and interpretations. One of my favorite series is called "the very rich hours of a compost pile." The pictures are so incredible that I can feel the warmth coming off of them as they decompose. Just look at those swiss chard leaves! Gorgeous.
Another of his series that I adore is called "piles." The texture in these photos is unbelievable. A pile of hay becomes a pile of light. A lot of the piles are entitled "Future Site of XYZ Shopping Mall" and things like that, or they are piles of a specific type of trash. I really like the ambiguous political nature of this series because though I'm a tree-hugger at heart, I can't avoid believing that everything can be beautiful. I like to be pushed past that comfort boundary into a place where a pile of oil cans makes me smile.
Other "landscape" photographers (or "Environmental Artists") who make my knees weak:
Andy Goldsworthy - It's hard to pinpoint one thing about him that I love the most, but it might be the black holes he creates in the ground, or the ice sculptures
Joel Meyerowitz - "Cape Light" was the book that got me into this type of photography in the first place - I have two copies of it
Edward Burtynsky - His photos of oil refineries make me so excited to be living that I have to take a nap because I don't know what else to do with myself.
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