A Nicaraguan Coffee Harvester: Please C&C

[DLibrach]

This image created some discussion when I posted it on one of the theme threads. As per Asher's suggestion, I am posting this in its own one here to so that we can delve a bit further into it.

First though, a bit of background about the image.

Last November (2007), I spent a few weeks in rural Nicaragua documenting the coffee harvest at various fincas (farms and plantations). I was fortunate to have contacts through my wife who had been down there at the time for many months conducting her PhD research. This afforded me some great and unique opportunities.

I won't go into a long history lesson about Nicaragua (I'm sure a quick google search will get you all you need) but coffee is playing a major role in the rebuilding of this once troubled country. It is their number one export and agriculture as a whole is the mainstay of their economy.

Every year workers flock to the coffee fields for the annual harvest (in some places it is harvested twice per year). For many, these couple of months will make up the majority of their family's annual income. I'm sure for some it might even be their only source.

There are various jobs that need to be done but the actual picking of the beans from the plant is reserved almost entirely for women. Their size, dexterity and small hands make it easier to pick off the beans in the dense vegetation that the plants grow in. At the end of the day, they take what they've picked to the side of the road (in some of the larger fincas) or back to the main structure (in the smaller ones) where the volume of their individual haul is calculated. This is how they get paid.

This image is of one such worker waiting for her daily haul to be calculated.

Cheers,
Dave

 

[Jim Galli]

David, I hope you will post more. It is wonderful.

 

[Asher Kelman]

David, I hope you will post more. It is wonderful.

Jim,

No better guy could give this support! You're skilled, talented and experienced in B&W work and especially fine portraiture. So for your noticing that this is so special, I am especially pleased. My C & C comments will follow*.

Asher

I did C & C twice, but in vain! Sort of the "cat ate my homework" excuse! I have to retype everything I wrote as this Apple Bluetooth keyboard seems to send "wipe out everything" code every so often. I'm switching to typing first in MS word with autosave!

 

[Mike Shimwell]

David,

these are remarkable pictures. I couldn't agree more with Jim's original comment about the first being reminiccent of Dorothea Lange's Migrant Mother. Your lady retains her dignity in the face of waiting, we presume, in a position of some weakness. The figure in the background adds to the sense of her isolation and vulnerability.

Mike

 

[DLibrach]

Thank you everyone for your kind words.

David

 

[Asher Kelman]

Why are some posts moved?

This thread is just for C&C of David's first picture and others to follow. We want to discuss the actual photograph to look at it closely and comment accordingly on whatever level we feel comfortable. It doesn't have to go very deep, just be your honest impression and thoughts.

Asher

For other interesting pictures and the life of these workers in Nicaragua and related ideas, they're found here. These are not only from David but from also Leonardo, himself an Nicaraguan, and hopefully others who might be inspired to contribute.

Without separating C&C from wider discussion, we miss the C&C!

 

[doug anderson]

Great shot. You've caught an unguarded moment -- her fatigue, her worker's hands, her contemplative look.

 

[Asher Kelman]

"A Nicaraguan Coffee Harvester" by David Librach & "The Migrant Worker" by Lange.

This image created some discussion when I posted it on one of the theme threads. As per Asher's suggestion, I am posting this in its own one here to so that we can delve a bit further into it.

First though, a bit of background about the image.

Last November (2007), I spent a few weeks in rural Nicaragua documenting the coffee harvest at various fincas (farms and plantations). I was fortunate to have contacts through my wife who had been down there at the time for many months conducting her PhD research. This afforded me some great and unique opportunities.

I won't go into a long history lesson about Nicaragua (I'm sure a quick google search will get you all you need) but coffee is playing a major role in the rebuilding of this once troubled country. It is their number one export and agriculture as a whole is the mainstay of their economy.

Every year workers flock to the coffee fields for the annual harvest (in some places it is harvested twice per year). For many, these couple of months will make up the majority of their family's annual income. I'm sure for some it might even be their only source.

There are various jobs that need to be done but the actual picking of the beans from the plant is reserved almost entirely for women. Their size, dexterity and small hands make it easier to pick off the beans in the dense vegetation that the plants grow in. At the end of the day, they take what they've picked to the side of the road (in some of the larger fincas) or back to the main structure (in the smaller ones) where the volume of their individual haul is calculated. This is how they get paid.

This image is of one such worker waiting for her daily haul to be calculated.

Cheers,
Dave

We have already alluded to the ranking of this photograph with the 1936, Great Depression Era iconic work, the Migrant Worker by Dorothea Lange. The detailed comparison of the two pictures I'll leave for someone else to pick up for now. I intend to get to that in due course. Let me just deal at this stage with some aspects of the modern picture taken in Nicaragua.

I especially like this photograph since it works on so many levels. Knowing what's going on, that he is staring at the Coffee Plantation supervisors, waiting nervously (and perhaps with some resentment or even hostility) for the announcement of what volume of coffee beans the woman picked that day was worth. This is easily read. So is the narrative of the deep concern and inward thinking of the woman.

It's also obvious obvious that here clenched left hand, thrust into her left cheek is a major foucs point of the picture, reinforcing our interpretation of how the result of what's happening has considerable consequence for her and her family. So that's easy./

Again its evident that she is the main character, the protagonist we root for, and so she is so perfectly rendered, with powerful curves directing the eye in a clockwise movement, while he is shown blurred and more static and is thus a supporting character in the narrative.

Now look at the multiple lines made by the part of his head.

• His jaw line
• The lower edge of his hat
• The anterior edge of his hair coming below his hat
• The central line of his closed lips

All these point towards her head, almost like the rays of a halo in a Madonna painting. This is more subtle but to a person exposed to Christian artwork, painting and theology, this motif is built into the subconscious ready to act as a strengthening buttress for the position of the woman. She is both tragic and heroic like the Madonna in the Jesus stories. In any case, the lines all point to her head and thus her importance, always directing us back to her.

There's much more, but for now, this is enough to say that the picture is, in my opinion at least, remarkable.

In one, on its surface, a simple composition, A Nicaraguan Coffee Harvester by David Librach has engraved external male attitude with female internalized concerns bonded together. This spiritual intertwining of fate is remarkable. It's meaning and physical form immediately calls for and holds our attention, compassion and empathy and it doesn't ever let go. It causes an eruptive cascade of feelings and thoughts that transcend the particular circumstance to have significance in terms of art, social justice, history, anthropology, politics and more.

So I argue that photograph not only has compelling physical aesthetics but also an obvious narrative with social value. I consider that the latter is never necessary in art. To me however, in this case, it's still agreeable in the best Kantian sense in spite of calling attention to some higher meaning. So, both as a photograph and an instrument of social meaning, this one photograph, in my view, is endowed with the stuff that should make for lasting value.

Without doubt, this is one of the richest photgraphs I've ever seen.

There's more, but already I might be accused of excess. I freely admit that my critique might be questioned, with but not the artistic and photographic worth of the picture itself.

Asher

 

[fahim mohammed]

All I would like to say is lovely...comp,timing, lighting and subject. brilliantly captured.

Regards.

 

[DLibrach]

Thank you once again Asher for your kind words. I appreciate your insight into this image.

David

 

[Jim Galli]

A different view

In the United States, we watch Oprah, we become politically correct, we look at this picture and feel some guilt as we sip our Starbucks or whatever (for me any strong french roast will usually do). Have we enslaved this women?

No one can unscramble this egg. My mom spent several years in Haiti as a nurse missionary. She shared a cottage with another lady that worked with her. While she lived there they employed a lady to clean the cottage and prepare usually just a supper meal for them. We look at this in the United States as servitude. Almost slavery. But my mom notes that if they hadn't paid that lady a few dollars to do that her other choice was hunger like the rest of the country. In fact her peers considered her VERY lucky to be able to have that little job.

Jesus said, You will always have the poor with you and perhaps the best we can do is drink some coffee and hope this lady can feed her children with some little dignity.

The picture opens the discussion and for that I'm grateful.

 

[DLibrach]

I'm fascinated by what everyone has to say about this image. There are many reasons why I took this photo and what I was hoping to convey with it. However, at least for a little bit, I think I'm going to stay on the sidelines and just observe the great conversation.

David

I will though continue to provide more context and information about these women and the other workers over here.

 

[leonardobarreto.com]

Sorry I had no time to post here last week, and I have to go scan some image from my Nicaragua file. Also I don't know if refer to the photography or what is depicted there. Underdevelopment, coffee industry and the way of life of harvesters in Nicaragua is a very complex topic of conversation. Since I was a child I asked the same questions that where asked here and as I sit to write this text, there is a gathering new perfect storm in Nicaragua with yet another caudillo (its a latinamerican word like "macho" that denotes a "strong man" that rules with the use of force and mass psychology that depends on the lack of education of the people) insists in denying the possibility to choose the leaders...

Probably for the cup of coffee that you pay $5 in New York a very, very small amount goes to girls like the ones in the images -families usually go to the harvest to work as a "team" with all, even small children, picking coffee fruits--. But it is a very important industry in the country that is producing high quality organic cafe.

Probably life in coffee plantations is not all bad, so It would be good to see images of people having fun. I think that life is relative, in the 80's there was shortage of almost anything -including water and electricity frequent outings, but I remember the years as very exiting happy days.

Probably the best way to improve conditions of workers in countries like Nicaragua is to market products in a way that they give the consumer in the US, EU, Japan, the choice to buy "fair trade" or "regular" half pound of coffee beans. And of free trade agreements that condition the establishment of modern worker-protection laws in the producing countries.

 

[leonardobarreto.com]

...moved my post to where I'm supposed to ... I think

http://www.openphotographyforums.com/forums/showthread.php?p=63865#post63865

 

[Ken Tanaka]

Hello David,
Of course I agree that this is a very evocative image. It is, indeed, reminiscent of Dorothea Lange's famous FSA image...perhaps too much so for its own good.

My question to you, however, is what are your plans for this image? Is it just a 1-off travel snap? Is it part of a photo-documentary work to be published?

 

[DLibrach]

Hello David,
.....My question to you, however, is what are your plans for this image? Is it just a 1-off travel snap? Is it part of a photo-documentary work to be published?

I like to think this is more than just a "1-off travel snap" but that will ultimately be for others to decided. As far as what I'll do with this image and the rest in the series? That still remains to be seen. You have all given me much to think about.

Thank you again everyone for your comments on this image.

Cheers,
David

 

[Johan Combrink]

I love the feel one gets here, a real sense of anticipation. Well done and I also love the colour.

 

[Asher Kelman]

I love the feel one gets here, a real sense of anticipation. Well done and I also love the colour.

Johan,

I appreciate that you are finding such good material to bring back to people's attention. I feel that this is rather special photography that asks of the photographer, "What comes next? Still, this is remarkable photography! I misinterpreted the second worker as being a man! Still, this does not diminish the picture.

Asher

 

[Asher Kelman]

This image has haunted me for a long time and I had to revisit. Having a great cup of coffee means someone tired and worried, waited for the beans to be counted, a trade for food and shelter.


Asher

 

[Antonio Correia]

It is indeed a great image ! The duotone - subtle - used enhances it's beauty.

This is one image among so many good ones in the gallery.

When I saw this work I remembered Fritz Liedtke's work Beneficio de cafe also photographed in Nicaragua.

 

[fahim mohammed]

A haunting and mesmerizing capture.

 

[Chris Calohan]

I wonder had you not given us a title, this photograph would have the same impact? I do think the comparison to Lange is solid and perhaps a touch of Lewis Hines for good measure.

However, without the title, I cannot make a connection to her line of work, only to the degree of poverty she might be experiencing. Just a thought.