American Farmer

I've often thought about doing a coffee table that documents the faces of antique dealers. They (I guess I can say we) are an interesting breed. We're gypsies of sorts - traveling backroads for old treasures, kicking through fields of dust, picking through piles of junk, selling our wares in sometimes ugly conditions at antique shows. The cigarettes, the sun, the wind. The road food. It's all created some incredible faces out there in antique land.

Farmers, on the other hand, aren't gypsies at all and spend most of their lives on one large parcel of land - tending cattle, raising chickens, growing cotton, etc. etc.. My family has a farm in central Louisiana, and one man has run the show there for the past 50+ years. His face, like many antique dealers, would fit perfectly in Paul Mobley's new book, American Farmer. Over the last decade, Mobley has visited nearly 200 farms and ranches documenting the lives and faces of those who nurture and sustain this great American land. A few of his shots: