Agrarian Trust

FarmHer: Documenting Women in Agriculture

Check out Iowa photographer Marji Guyler-Alaniz’s work to document the rise of women in agriculture.

From FarmHer:
Photography
My name is Marji Guyler-Alaniz and I am a photographer from Iowa. My goal is to use my camera and my vision to further this cause. FarmHer is about documenting women in agriculture. The only way for me to successfully join my passion of photography and my mission for FarmHer is to create these images in my style of photography. I want to show these women to the world and I want to do that through beautiful images. So, FarmHer is about women and it is about photography.
Style
This project is about documenting women. It never has been and never will be about posing people to create the perfect scene. There is a place and time for those types of photos and this is not it. Documenting for FarmHer means to follow and not dictate the photographs. My goal is to capture the beauty in the every day and my style is to show who these women are through subtleties. Subtleties that show these are women and portray that they are agriculture. Too often in our world, the beauty of a woman; of an image, is judged by a face. These are beautiful women, doing beautiful work and my goal is to bring an appreciation to what they do. If you read the whole story, written through my images, I hope you end with a great understanding and appreciation of that woman, that farm and the beauty within. Each one tells a unique story, while the whole strives to be an overall movement.

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Believe
This is a long-term project. I believe in the idea of FarmHer. I believe that the only way you change ideas and perceptions is consistency over time. These changes might be subtle, but I believe they will occur. When people see an image or idea regularly, they come to believe that it is way that things actually are. By infusing images of women in agriculture into farm imagery we can change the way people perceive a farmer. If you believe change is necessary and can occur, spread the word about FarmHer, tell your friends and family and come back to visit often.