Why do people take photographs? Robert Adams tried to find an answer in his 1994 book of collected essays, aptly named Why People Photograph. In this episode of the Photobook Show, we’ll try something different: instead of looking at books from different photographers grouped around a topic, we’ll look at one artist’s lifetime of work through his books.

Robert Adams, whose approach and style has been hugely influential, started photographing the American landscape in the ‘60s and is still working, now 60 years later. To mark “American Silence: The Photographs of Robert Adams” — his current exhibition at the National Gallery of Art in Washington DC through October 2 — we’ll look at some of his landmark publications (The New West and Summer Nights, Walking) and American Silence (Aperture) that accompanies the exhibition.