Anonymous, “What I Planted”

“With each picture I feel like a gardener. When you take the film, each roll is like a seed and when you see your creation it is like a flower.”

This is how this anonymous photographer described the process of making this image of a young landscape worker. The photographer is a member of the Workplace Project on Long Island and a participant in photography classes given by Bread and Roses, a nonprofit cultural project of the labor union 1199. The photograph is included in Unseen America: Photos and Stories by Workers (Regan Books, 2006).

The Workplace Project is an organization founded in 1992 to address the marginalization of low and no-wage immigrant workers on Long Island.