Thirtyfour Campgrounds by Martin Hogue
MIT Press, 2016
Hardcover, 266 pages

It's summer, which means ? deer ticks be damned ? it's time to get outdoors. For many, getting outside equates with camping, which in the United States most likely means heading to one of the thousands of campgrounds run by KOA (Kampgrounds of America) or some other private or government operator. Catered to people with as little as a car and a tent or as much as an RV with all its trimmings, campgrounds are places that most people take for granted; they provide a number of home-like amenities but also act as starting points for venturing into more untamed nature via hiking, fishing, and other activities. As depicted in Martin Hogue's clinically artistic Thirtyfour Campgrounds, they are places of potential, of "civilization" interfacing with "nature" so people can get away from the former and explore the latter.
One of the most telling photographs in the introduction to Hogue's book is Bruce Davidson's "The Trip West. Camp Ground no. 4.", taken in Yosemite National Park in 1966. Eight people (a family" four couples") sit in lawn chairs facing the camera, with a backdrop of cars and campers extending their conveniences (grill, scooter, high chair, Ritz crackers, televisions) deep into the rest of the campground. It's evident that nature is not a setting for new activities; it is merely a backdrop for the same old domesticated activities. Consideri...