On May 24, I was fortunate to come across two fields being harvested. The first was cilantro, which caught my eye because the boxes were arranged in neat rows with the mountains providing a lovely backdrop. I parked and shot the boxes, then moved in to focus on the field workers. They were amused to see me photographing them and were all smiles. You’ll find them in the Agriculture/Fieldworker gallery.
Just a mile down the road, I found a celery field being harvested. The process is fascinating. A large machine moves on tracks through the field. The first row of workers cuts the celery and places it on a long table. The second row bags the clusters and puts them in cartons, which are then lifted to another level where the boxes are placed on plastic trays which are then combined on pallets. The final stage comes when a front-end loader hoists the pallets and deposits them on a truck.