Dirt & Steel

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by Jeff Morley

Last Saturday my wife had an important obligation on the west side of Phoenix, quite far from home, and in a place she'd never been. I immediately offered to drive her because I know this sort of scenario creates anxiety for her, and also because I quickly realized that this little task would leave me unencumbered in a fairly target-rich environment for a few hours until she was through with her business.

The west side of town is pretty much like the rest of town, but moving further west, it devolves more quickly back to the cotton fields and cattle that used to dominate this now bustling, once barren landscape. The sky was in a rare cooperative mood, and provided dense clouds hovering in a broad broken plane, low above the desert floor. But the images that mean the most to me from that day are of the implements of agriculture. This disc harrow glinted in the sun, slabs of shade adding a linear overlay to its circular and undulating nature. I can feel the latent heat in the steel, and smell the dusty crust that anodized the rest of this contraption, save the parts that actually till the soil.

Sigma DP-2 Merrill, ISO 100, f2.8, 1/800, Nik Silver Efex pro 2, Aperture.