A powerful photographic survey of the impact of irrigation systems on the landscape of the United States
In The One Hundred Circle Farm, renowned photographer Emmet Gowin (b. 1941) presents stunning aerial images of center-pivot irrigation systems in the western and midwestern United States. This type of farming involves a method of watering crops in which equipment rotates around a centrally drilled well, creating enormous, distinct circles of irrigated land, often in the midst of dry terrain. Anyone who has taken a cross-country flight has likely seen countless acres of these iconic symbols of industrial agriculture. Through a faithful yet personal photographic survey, Gowin's powerful images not only bear witness to the ambitions humans wield in shaping the landscape, but also attest to how such primal elements-circles, pivots, and lines-symbolize water depletion and the fragile environment.
The stark photographic compositions, more than one hundred in all, were created over eight years. Fields resemble lost civilizations; crops gape like strange new suns. Hauntingly beautiful, the images highlight Earth's nourishing geology, visual evidence of our labors. Inscribed onto the earth, these lines are reminders of the technology extracting unimaginable amounts of water that cannot be replaced, and raise questions about what large-scale irrigation must answer for when the water runs out.
With an afterword by anthropologist Lucas Bessire discussing the history and impact of pivot irrigation on American farming, The One Hundred Circle Farm stands as a poetic visual record, evidence of the tenuous connections between human enterprise and our planet's most precious resource.
"In The One Hundred Circle Farm, renowned American photographer Emmet Gowin (b. 1941) presents stunning aerial scenes of center-pivot irrigation systems in the Western and Midwestern United States. This type of farming is a method of watering crops in which irrigation equipment rotates around a pivot, creating a circle of irrigated land, often in the midst of otherwise dry terrain. This system creates a circular pattern in the crops when viewed from above, making striking agricultural crop circles. While this type of irrigation is used for its efficient water usage, it emphasizes the artificiality of the system, leaving very noticeable indications where the fallow, unwatered corners of farmland are left unused. In this book, Gowin offers a unique view of this phenomenon that sheds light on human impact on the environment. Documenting the physical impact of pivot irrigation, The One Hundred Circle Farm challenges the viewer to contemplate our complex relationship with-and domination over-the landscape. Filled with stark, beautiful black-and-white and color compositions of light and form, this book bears witness to our long-standing relationship with the earth, our agricultural systems, and our planet's most precious resource: water"--
"The book is wonderfully printed on an eggshell tinted paper, providing a soft warmth to the many images and heightens the effects of the warmer toned images that Gowin has created, varying from a neutral grayscale to a very warm tint. . . . I find the photographs ethereal and surreal."
---Douglas Stockdale, PhotoBook Journal
