Introduction to Farmways: A Snapshot

Begun in 2011, this photographic project, which documents the rhythms of small family farming and agriculture in Knox County, Ohio and the surrounding region, attempts to bring visibility to community farm practices and environments, as well as agricultural events taking place in the northeast central area of the state. This selection of photographs presents a diversity of subjects, which taken together, tell an extended narrative about farming in this region, while embracing the daily labor and remarkable beauty that resides in every aspect of this profession, and way of life and landscape. A primary goal of Farmways: A Snapshot is to explore, intimately at close range, farmers at work, farm environments, livestock and crop planting and harvesting, assorted other chores and educationally demonstrative agricultural events, including the county fair, annual harvest festivals, and the farmer’s market. These varied facets of local agriculture offer an informationally rich visual panoply. It should be noted that such a photographic study, suggesting an outline and aesthetics of local agricultural work and practices, and local celebrations of farm life, is a rather unique approach. Attention to this subject has received scant, if any, dedicated attention from photographic practitioners.

Particularly since World War II, with the decline of the family farm and the increasing scale and industrialization of livestock breeding, the genetic modification of seeds, mechanized crop planting, fertilization and harvesting, signaled new modern methods of food processing, production and packaging. As a result consumers in the U.S. have felt increasingly disconnected from the sources of their food. A groundswell of public concern has in recent decades given rise to the local foods movement with increasing interest in sustainably grown, fresh organic fare.

Knox County features many small, multi-generational family farms, and a regular schedule of integrated community, county and state-sponsored agricultural events. In addition, a number of new and renewed sustainable organic agricultural practices, and small scale subsistence farming are thriving today. Across the U.S., smaller scale sustainable organic practices are a growing cottage industry. The daily work and routine of these overlapping agricultural trends (many with significant historical roots, some clearly much more recent in origin) are known broadly to the public, but remain largely unseen.

It is no surprise that romanticized depictions of the farm have persisted in some proportion to the increasing economic disappearance of family farming due, in large part, to the commercial dominance of agribusiness. Nearly all of us are familiar with the motif of the red or white barn, grain silo, rustic outbuildings, and tractors and hay wagons viewed against the backdrop of vast acres of fields and pasture. This pastoral landscape is a commonplace in central Ohio. It is seen from a far distance, as inhabitants drive at highway speed through the countryside along remote two lane state and county roads. Such a nostalgic view of the family farm is repeated endlessly in iconic painted and photographic depictions that hang in many homes and are likely to appear in rural community spaces, such as local businesses, banks, post offices and senior centers. The proliferation of these representations suggests the vital importance of farming in the rural U.S., and yet practically, these images tend to be low in informational value and are based upon generic, stereotypical farm imagery. The picturesque family farm – seenfrom a distance, at arm’s length – may be thought of as a kind of attractive book cover without any contents; it portends a deeper reality within than is delivered. Farmways: A Snapshot, attempts to fill this gap visually, paying homage to the arduous labor of farmers, and complicating and updating our visual knowledge and appreciation of farming. This series makes note of the historic and active presence of farming in our rural agricultural communities, and burgeoning national interest in locally sourced food and sustainable, organic agricultural practices.

Contrary to a lack of visual attention, farming as a way of life has been explored In depth by writers – some researched and written by journalists and some contributed by farmers reflecting on years of first-hand knowledge. Writing on agriculture can be poetically expansive in its description of the sights, sounds and even olfactory sensations of farming. Such writing with close attention to visual detail offers a promising model for my photographic practice.

— Dan Younger