We are somewhere between a Cultura Franca and a world of Cultura Vernacular. there is neither one culture nor complete diversity of culture. There are, instead, elements of both. Either culturafranca.com or culturavernacular.com gets you here. Commonality and difference in the same place.
This collection of photographs is meant to document small, but critical, parts of the stories of the people I've met in the course of my work in development. Most, but not all, of the people are farmers, those at the beginnings of the food security value chains. If they can't grow food, they and others can't eat. Their stories may be surprising or surprisingly familiar.
Dorothea Lange, famous for her iconic photographs of 1930s American migrant agricultural life, is the inspiration for this collection of photos. She was engaged by the US Farm Security Administration to document the great exodus of farmers out of depression and drought ravaged American middle. It was tough, dirty, grueling work that resulted in an astounding collection of photographs with descriptions of the circumstances in which they were taken. Lange, like almost all photographers, usually took a number of photos of her subjects. She collected these photos in groups, each group identified by a paragraph or two of description, and each photo accompanied by a caption. Taken together, the photographs, descriptions and captions tell entire stories.
