In The Fields

• Photographer
  Richard Street
• Agency / Studio
  Streetshots
• Prizes
  Gold in Editorial/Photo Essay

The lettuce knives are razor sharp. Asparagus harvesters stoop, cut, and pitch plants into backpacks. Melons are tossed down a line of men up into the back of a truck. Field hands crawl like bugs through the fields crawl like as if on a pilgrimage. Advertising mentions none of this. These images underscore the extent to which fruit and vegetable production rests on a class of landless peasants who sweat and shed blood. They are an unacknowledged American variant of apartheid.

I am an academically-trained historian who photographs contemporary history, especially in my fields, agriculture, farm labor, and rural poverty