Environment: View of America

As a successful photographer, David Plowden, 41, has crisscrossed the U.S. on assignments from magazines, book publishers and the Bureau of Public Roads. His favorite subjects, he says, are "our heroic machines and the great though often anonymous examples of our building art." Two years ago, the Smithsonian Institution in Washington sifted through a decade of Plowden's work and organized a show of 75 remarkable black-and-white photos. Now these same pictures have been collected in a handsomely designed and printed paperbound book entitled The Hand of Man on America (Chatham Press; $5.95). In a subtle, ironic way, Plowden's shots tell more...