Photographer’s Odyssey Revealed in Evocative Photos

CHRIS TORRES
Staff Writer

COLLEGE PARK, Md. — An odyssey, according to the dictionary, is an “extended adventurous voyage or trip”—
an “intellectual or spiritual quest.”

Photographer Edwin Remsberg’s own odyssey has taken him across the country — from some of the nation’s most desolate places to one of the South Pacific’s most exotic — all in an effort to get people to understand and appreciate one of his first loves, agriculture.

“A Georgic Odyssey,” a collection of 54 pictures from Remsberg’s four year journey through the country, is on display through Nov. 1 at the University of Maryland.

The photos beautifully tell the story of agriculture and its many different faces.
The exhibit features some of the “traditional” places agricultural has historically been big — Lancaster County, Pa. and the Midwest.

But it also features some places where the word agriculture doesn’t normally come to mind — Micronesia, the Everglades in Florida and fruit stands in Brooklyn, New York.

It was all done, according to Remsberg, to bring awareness to the many issues and topics agriculture encompasses and to get people to understand where there food really comes from.

“I wanted to bring up issues to think about,” he said. “Things that would engage people. Let people make up their own minds about things.”

Remsberg, a contract photographer for the University of Maryland and the USDA, began his journey in 2002. Working with various local extension agents, he planned out his trip to cover literally every corner of the country.

The exhibit features stops he made in the local area, including the Leola Produce Auction, the New Holland Sales Stables and a corn farm in Maryland.

It also features stops he made in some rather remote locales, such as the largely desolate southwest valley of Montana, the largest banana plantation in the nation in Pepeekeo, Hawaii, and a pearl aquaculture facility on the island of Pohnepei in Micronesia.

Along the way, Remsberg, a farmer himself, ran into a few close calls and even saw things he never dreamed of seeing.

A trip to California’s wine country nearly ended on a tragic note. Remsberg said he wanted to take pictures of a vineyard from overhead by plane. But when the small two-seater plane he was on suddenly lost its engine, he found himself in the fight of his life.

“I was a little shaken up, but thank goodness we landed fairly safely,” he said.

Another moment he remembered was at a Native American sweat lodge, where he had to get “purified” to get the shot he needed. The purification ritual required him to take his clothes off in the middle of the winter.

“That was quite an experience,” he said. “It was real cold.”

His trip to Pohnepei took six months to plan. Remsberg’s plan was to get pictures of divers collecting oysters for black pearls. Little did he know the way of life on this tiny south Pacific island was worlds away from anything he had ever seen before.

“You get to realize how diverse this world is when you see a lifestyle that is so basic and simple,” he said.

But taking the pictures was not just about getting shots of beautiful places. Remsberg said he also wanted to focus on serious issues effecting agriculture.
One such issue is in the Florida Everglades, where land that was once encased in water and is now exposed to air is literally evaporating and is effecting sugar cane farmers in the Sunshine State.

“That was really shocking to see,” he said. “I’ve never really seen that before.”

He also touched on controversial issues such as migrant labor, through photos of Mexican workers on a California farm; industrial farming, through pictures of a large pig farm in Princess Anne, Md.; and the use of performance enhancing hormones, through pictures of an organic dairy in Maine.

The exhibit will be open until Nov. 1 and can be viewed at the Stamp Union Art Gallery. But Remsberg hopes that the images will be etched in people’s minds forever.

“This whole trip was an exercise and tested everything I didn’t know about agriculture,” he said. “I hope people get the same feeling when they see these photos.”