A documentary look at the critical problems of the most productive farmland in America and the people who work on it by an award-winning team. With an introduction by Thomas Steinbeck .
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A documentary look at the critical problems of the most productive farmland in America and the people who work on it by an award-winning team. With an introduction by Thomas Steinbeck .
Read Less
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Seller's Description:
Near Fine in Near Fine jacket. 4to-over 9¾"-12" Inscribed By Authors (USA) 1st printing. INSCRIBED BY AUTHORS: " Thanks for supporting PAN/ Ken Light/ Melane Light", no other markings, Near Fine in about Fine dust jacket with top edge not quite crisp. Boards, 154pp, B&W photos of agricultural workers and laborers in the San Joaquin Valley in California. A heavy book. (3.0 JM HOJ 302/1.
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Seller's Description:
New. 1597141720. *** FREE UPGRADE to Courier/Priority Shipping Upon Request ***-*** IN STOCK AND IMMEDIATELY AVAILABLE FOR SHIPMENT-Flawless copy, brand new, pristine, never opened--176 pp.; 113 illus. --with a bonus offer--
There's a fascinating story to tell about California's agricultural cornucopia known as the Central Valley and the workers who toil there. Unfortunately I don't think these photos really deliver the story. The rather short text pieces are far more thought provoking than the images, these essays reveal the huge agri businesses taking advantage of Federal subsidies, employing cheap migrant labor and cajoling politicians to supply ever more water for their land. Water is the key to the success of the Valley and agriculture takes about eighty per cent of California's water usage but it's getting harder and harder to supply the required amounts to the soil.
Some of the photos do capture the feel of the area but in my view far too many are just also-rans. The two photos on pages 126 and 127 sort of sum up the problem. 127 has a beautifully framed shot of a roadside alter with a cross on top, the framing pulls the eye into the contents of the simple structure so you can see the religious pictures, flowers, candles, cans for water and three steps made out of wood for anyone to kneel on. Behind the fields stretch into the distance. I can imagine Dorothea Lange stopping her car to photograph this if it had been there in November 1936 when she visited the San Joaquin Valley taking photos for the FSA. There are a few other photos in the book as good as this but so many are like the photo of a grape picker on the opposite page. He is stretching out to pick them but the leaves of the vine are out of focus, the grapes aren't visible and his head, shoulders and arms are blurred.
Other photos don't seem to be too relevant to the book's theme, like the Halloween shot on page seventy-seven or the close-up of a neon BEER sign on page eighty. Both of these shots could have been taken anywhere. Another problem are the twelve angled photos of the landscape and buildings that seem so out of place in a documentary book. Several pin-sharp aerial photos do give an impression of enormous size of the Valley and the continuing creep of new and abandoned estates that are completely out of reach for the local labor force.
The book's production is as you would expect for a photobook: 175 screen on a reasonable matt art paper. The typography is rather over done with columns deliberately falling short by a line or two and the first nineteen pages use roman numerals. For a book that is covering a geographic area why is there no map of the Central Valley? The back pages bibliography lists seventeen titles including 'The Great Central Valley: California's Heartland' and though it was published in 1993 it is easily the best book about the history and geography of this important part of California.
