  We report on the results of R band observations of the error box of the
gamma-ray burst of August 28, 1997, made between 4 hours and 8 days after this
burst occurred. No counterpart was found varying by more than 0.2 magnitudes
down to R = 23.8. We discuss the consequences of this non-detection for
relativistic blast wave models of gamma-ray bursts, and the possible effect of
redshift on the relation between optical absorption and the low-energy cut off
in the X-ray afterglow spectrum.
