Drying Corn
Yunnan Province, China 2005
It was fall when we toured Yunnan’s countryside. People were getting ready for winter. The farmers were harvesting rice. Whole villages were in the rice terraces: cutting, shocking, threshing and then carrying the grain and the chaff back to the village.
Here ears of drying corn are hung from the porch ceiling of a village house. First the farmer tied the corn to poles using the shuck as twine and then raised the loaded poles to hooks on the ceiling. I shot many images of corn drying. Sometimes the farmers hung the ears from branches of trees.
When I changed the image from color to black and white, the contrast made each ear, each kernel and each crevice pop. No two ears are alike. Ears of corn become elements of design. Now the photo isn’t just about bringing in the harvest. It’s about nature.