Sandi Haber Fifield. Between planting and picking

Photographer Sandi Haber Fifield explores the quiet moments and unexpected beauty that reveal the simple life of a small farm. Inspired by the rapid ascendency of the local food movement, Fifield has spent the last two growing seasons documenting small farms. From Green Gulch in Muir Beach on the West Coast to Beetlebung in Chilmark, MA; from the orchards along the Mississippi River in Brussels, MO, to the grapes grown on Guy Beardsley's eco-garden in Shelton, CT, she has chronicled many places that, although far-flung, share a tangible spirit that is communicated in the most ordinary of details. She is drawn to the authenticity of small farm life that congregates along the margins in a myriad of cast-off moments: sunlight on muslin seed bags, wooden crates, plastic mesh, buckets, pots, hoses, a lunar planting calendar, quirky signage. The banal details, unsuspecting and unnoticed, constitute a compelling portrait of the farmer who is absent from these photographs, and of the life lived in these places. A rural still life, these pictures illuminate the solitary, homely and authentic quality of life on a small farm. This book includes photographs made on farms, but is not about farming per se; the images are about the quiet moments that reveal the unexpected beauty of small farms through the banal details.