AA-2026-E997C0
On the image
A rice paddy or flood-prone cropland stretches to the horizon in a flat expanse, water pooled between the planted rows in the way that meant either good fortune or disaster depending on the season and the crop. A handful of figures and what appear to be farm structures dot the distant treeline, small and purposeful in the way of people who have learned to work in a landscape that regularly inundates itself. The foreground shows the characteristic striping of rows, some green with early growth, others still in standing water—this is the business of subsistence farming in a region where water is both tool and threat, and where every family has learned to read the flood the way others read the weather. The photographer stood at ground level, making the vastness of the plain even more insistent, the sky pale and enormous, the human enterprise reduced to a pattern of lines and persistence. This is the work of generations who accepted water as simply part of the contract.
Visually related — by likeness
Flooded Agricultural Land with Distant Figures, Mid-20th Century. 1950–1960. Archive & Atlas, Historical Image Library, AA-2026-E997C0. https://thearchive.archiveandatlas.com/library/flooded-agricultural-land-with-distant-figures-mid-20th-century.
@misc{aaAA2026E997C0,
title = {Flooded Agricultural Land with Distant Figures, Mid-20th Century},
year = {1950–1960},
howpublished = {Archive \& Atlas, Historical Image Library},
note = {Accession AA-2026-E997C0},
url = {https://thearchive.archiveandatlas.com/library/flooded-agricultural-land-with-distant-figures-mid-20th-century}
}TY - ART TI - Flooded Agricultural Land with Distant Figures, Mid-20th Century PY - 1950–1960 PB - Archive & Atlas, Historical Image Library AN - AA-2026-E997C0 UR - https://thearchive.archiveandatlas.com/library/flooded-agricultural-land-with-distant-figures-mid-20th-century ER -
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