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Wednesday 28 September 2011

Distance


.

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Cherry orchards, farm lands and irrigation ditch at Emmett, Idaho
: photo by Russell Lee, July 1941




There we are, and I don't know
where we are
being taken, but
I hope it's not too far
from where we started
to look down into the gently
sloping sparsely wooded
green valley, and see
the far dry mountains
fading into vague towns
of cloud, in the stillness
of distance




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Farming land as seen from Whitebird Hill, Idaho County, Idaho
: photo by Russell Lee, July 1941

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Highway scene, Idaho County, Idaho
: photo by Russell Lee, July 1941

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Main Street, Twin Falls, Idaho
: photo by Russell Lee, May 1941

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Sandlot baseball game, Twin Falls, Idaho
: photo by Russell Lee, May 1941

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Irrigated farming land with mountains surrounding, Canyon County, Idaho
: photo by Russell Lee, June 1941

http://lcweb2.loc.gov/service/pnp/fsa/8c32000/8c32500/8c32556v.jpg

Bicycle racks, Pocatello, Banning County, Idaho
: photo by Russell Lee, July 1942


Russell Lee photos from Farm Security Administration/Office of War Information Collection, Library of Congress

3 comments:

Nin Andrews said...

Love this!

ACravan said...

Like Nin, I loved traveling the peaks and valleys of this, especially today, a day which will live in infamy. (I forget; did somebody use that line before?) All of the Lees are wonderful, but my favorites are the shots in second and third position. As soon as I read these (words and images), I thought of the chorus of the lovely Roger McGuinn song (on "Cardiff Rose") "Take Me Away." Curtis

TC said...

Thanks, Nin and Curtis.

Lee did a lot of work in Idaho. He must have loved the skies. But there was a vague purpose too of getting the job done. The job was largely made up of what proposed itself as the photographer drove along.

The irrigation projects were one of the great FSA contributions. Twin Falls was one of the first "planned communities". The girl with her back to us in the bottom shot lives in a Relocation Camp for Japanese.