Victoria Sambunaris- Farm with Workers, Jacumba, California, 2010

This image of a California farm scene was photographed by Victoria Sambunaris, a Yale graduate and highly noted female photographer. The image was taken in Jacumba, California in 2010. Sambunaris's work often shows natural landscapes across America with little evidence of human influence. In most pieces it is almost a game to try and find any man made structures within these beautiful, large photographs with extremely deep depth of field.
This photograph, however, shows a large natural landscape with obvious man made elements. Starting with the white irrigation system across the large brown field, one can see influence of man. The irrigation system has even stakes set out across the field that almost give the look of a grid after a while. Also, there seems to be a curvy road leading up the side of the mountain, as well. The combination of these lines I find really interesting. They seem to have a way of leading your eye throughout the whole picture.
When looking at this picture, one can tell that the photo was taken with extreme depth of field to show every beautiful detail of this landscape. However, this photograph is still two- dimensional. After looking at this photo for a while, I started to see it as a flat, color blocked surface. Along with the intentional lines, there seems to be stripes of contrasted color within landscape. Starting at the top, you have a thin light blue layer of sky, followed by a strip of white from the clouds. Then, the sky is again visible, contrasted by the dark color of the mountain. Within the field you see sunspots, followed by the shadow of the clouds. These stripes follow you all the way down to the end of the image with the light tan field and the bit of greenery at the bottom.
Along with having a captivating format, the thought behind this picture also caught my interest. As the only photo with apparent man made structures, it really brings out the theme of man versus nature. A lot of Sambunaris's photographs are solely scenes of America's natural beauty. Without knowing the date that they were taken, many people assume that those places are long covered up by today's industrial and technological world. However, the current showing at the MoCP shows all recent work from Sambinaris. This photo, having the elements of nature and man made structures really balances the idea well. I think that it makes people think twice about covering up our stunning American foregrounds, but at the same time, the farm irrigation system is a very positive thing for our environment as well.
Sambunaris's photos are ones that can hold your attention for much longer than 30 minutes with their amazing quality and depth of field. As a photographer, I love focusing on close up photography. This photograph, along with many others in this collection, give a totally new appreciation for landscape and large scale photography. The combination of the balance of formal elements and the balance of the meaning of man versus nature gives this photograph many different layers to consider.