Maria Isabel LeBlanc: De La Luz | LENSCRATCH

A few miles inland from the Northern California coast is fertile ground for harvest. Driving through the towns of Gilroy, Salinas, and Watsonville, the scent of garlic and artichokes mingle with earth, ripe with potential. Photographer Maria Isabel LeBlanc has driven these roads on a daily basis, appreciating the beauty of the land. Her series, De La Luz, examines her own evolution of seeing: first the land as it speeds past the car window, then the recognition of the annual agricultural cycles that present ever changing vistas, and finally the dark shapes of the unseen population of migrant workers that make it all possible. In the end, the series is a love letter, shot in large format and created as pristine silver gelatin prints, of the miraculous bounty of the earth and the recognition of those who toil in that abundance.