Arts Literature

Book Feature: George Masa’s Wild Vision

A Japanese Immigrant Imagines Western North Carolina

Brent Martin, Author

Brent Martin, who has worked in forest and land conservation for 30 years, became fascinated with the photographer George Masa after reading about Horace Kephart, and seeing a documentary, “The Mystery of George Masa,” made by Paul Bonesteel. Before that, Martin’s life had been influenced by the development he saw happening on the rural outskirts of Atlanta where he hunted and fished.

Born in Japan, Masa arrived in the US in 1901, settling in Asheville in 1915. He would go on to take photographs that were instrumental in the establishment of the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. “Big surprises were looking into the early history of places he documented and traveled,” Martin says. “Exploring them a hundred years later led to a lot of reflection on changes since then, as well as the context of those places at the time he photographed them. The Park was being established as well as an eastern National Forest system, while simultaneously the area was being logged, dammed and developed. It seemed to be a race against time, and it still is.”

Locating and choosing the most compelling photographs was the first step in writing the book. “Masa was a great photographer and his images are the best of his era,” Martin says. “There’s a particular aesthetic to them that would be followed upon by Ansel Adams and others. He was an original.”

George Masa’s Wild Vision: A Japanese Immigrant Imagines Western North Carolina, June, 2022, nonfiction, softcover, $25, by Brent Martin, and published by Hub City Press, Spartanburg, SC. A reading will be held Thursday, August 18, at 6 p.m. at Jackson County Public Library in Sylva.

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