Georg Gerster. Felder im Palouse, USA, 1979
Okay, done with the hand for now, the closest landscape we have. Georg Gerster, German photographer, did a lot of aerials from helicopter and small planes from the 60s to 90s. Beautiful photography, National Geographic stuff, very photogenic landscapes. The one above, found in his photo gallery on his website, is a ploughed field in eastern Washington State, near Palouse, shot in 1979.
Wonderfully graphic, one does have to ask why it is so. Looked up the area around Palouse on Google Maps and found that on the western slope of the Rockies it is indeed highly topographic, contour ploughing raised to land art.
We have a call for articles out for issue 26: dirt. Land is dirt, dirt grows crops, crops determine planting and harvesting with large machines these days, those machines make patterns and we find them often enchanting.
Google Maps: Palouse Washington USA