Filipino Igorot — Banaue Rice Terraces Worker
132.40 £
An Ifugao rice farmer at work on the 2,000-year-old Banaue terraces in the Philippine Cordillera — transplanting rice seedlings by hand in the flooded paddy, the ancient terrace walls rising steeply above him.
Description
The Banaue Rice Terraces of Ifugao Province in the Philippine Cordillera are a living UNESCO World Heritage Site — 2,000 years of continuous terrace agriculture maintained by the Ifugao people using traditional methods of hand transplanting, water management, and pest control without chemical inputs. This documentary portrait was made on the working terraces above Batad village — the best-preserved terrace amphitheatre in the Ifugao system — the subject an elderly Ifugao farmer transplanting rice seedlings from his bamboo seedling tray into the flooded paddy. The terrace walls behind him rise in geometric steps to the forest line above; the water in the adjacent terraces reflects the overcast sky. His traditional red-and-black woven g-string and the practical straw hat of contemporary field work co-exist in the portrait without contradiction. Shot at f/4 on a 35mm prime in available overcast light.
