I did manage to get a few photos.
Tuesday, August 3, 2010
More burning
There were quite a few burning fields yesterday, more than I had imagined. I had intended to get out early to find these, but other things came up. By the time I hit the road, more fires were being set, and it wasn't too long before the air was hazy with the smoke, and the color of everything orange-tinted as the sun filtered through. I also noticed something I had suspected but couldn't verify until today. A field that had been harvested for grass seed last year had been hayed. I thought there was more hay this year than last, and with the burning restrictions and seed prices in the toilet, it makes sense.
I did manage to get a few photos.
One thing is clear: I am going to have to work hard to find some unique shots this year, as these are more a variation on a well-documented theme. Perhaps I'll have to trespass a little.
I did manage to get a few photos.
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10 comments:
What is it that grabs you about this theme B? Is it the colour/shapes, or the alive/dead contrasts, or something else?
Where is the haze? The air looks crystal clear.
I like this theme a lot. For me it is the flow of the borders between the shapes, and the texture. Of Course, no artist am I.
It is all of those things, guys. Let me add what I recently wrote about them:
Since my wife and I stopped farming full-time, I have taken my art practice beyond our property to see what a broader landscape offers to me as an artist with a somewhat conceptual bent to my work. I didn’t have to go far to find a place where farming and fine art met again, this time in the perennial columns of smoke as grass seed fields burned throughout this section of the Willamette Valley.
Farming in our area has gone through a major transformation, specifically for grass seed farmers. Recent legislation severely limits the amount of field burning that farmers can do. They maintain that field burning is the most efficient way to insure a healthy crop; others see the burning as a significant source of pollution and a health risk. While I see both points of view, I see there is another effect: after the burnings, the landscape suggests styles of painting and calls to mind the work of artists such as Clyfford Still and Anselm Kiefer. The images I have submitted are representative of those observations and are part of a larger series, Field Burns, which is comprised of approximately thirty large-format photographs taken during the last two burn seasons.
And Crash, I took these photos when I first went out, just before the burning started. There is a marked difference between these and those I shot just a half hour later.
Not to worry - I think that these shots are way better than the shots you took last year.
I don't know if it's your Photoshop skills that are up or your photographic skills (as if it matters), but the top two are definitely worth looking at in large format.
/j.
joxum - Your suppositions are correct. I'm not a big techie, and that makes me a slow learner. However, over the last year I believe I ave gotten to know my camera and Photoshop a bit better. Still, aside from bracketing in manual mode at a low ASA and working with a few more filters, at this point I am so familiar with the subject matter, I know pretty much what works and what doesn't out in these fields. Now, I wish for a better camera...
It's an interesting topic when I think about it B, cos with farming you usually associate greens, vibrant colours and bringing things to life. Yet here black is the predominate colour, they're destroying life and essentially they are ..."anti-farming"? ;)
The greenies might also argue that in the big picture they're contributing the to end of the planet - which sure takes a mighty brown thumb.
The "Greenies" have a problem with the smoke from these fires. I cannot capture the size of the plumes in a manner that demonstrates their size. Thousands of feet into the air, and when five are going at once, it looks like the end is indeed nigh.
The burning is very old school, pre-technology, as agrarian peoples from the Bronze age and before set fires to replenish the ground with nutrients. The grass seed farmers do it to get rid of pests and weed seeds. They don't have to use herbicides and pesticides, Now, so they say, they'll have to if burning is banned completely. I'll be interested to see just how much the burning is reduced this year, aside from the change over to hay and wheat.
I remember the term 'slash and burn' back in my school daze. In Australia its a common occurrence up north in the cane fields.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slash_and_burn
My grandmother used to burn her field in the summer. Quite scary when you are a little guy.
I see them burn fields around where I live. When they do it at night, it's spectacular.
Nice shots.
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