Mississippi Delta Landscape: a Reading
(These photos are very wide. Click to see the full panoramic view.)
The Mississippi Delta, so the saying goes, begins in the lobby of the Peabody Hotel in Memphis and ends on Catfish Row in Vicksburg, a distance of some 200 miles. It is really an alluvial plain, not a delta, and was flooded every year for thousands of years - until the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers built levees to keep the river in its channel and stop the flooding. The flooding, of course, made Delta soil among the richest in the world. In the days of plantations - and slavery - it was a source of great wealth for the few who owned the land. Today pockets of great wealth remain. The legacy of slavery also remains, and the Delta is among the poorest regions in the United States.
The cotton field above, though small for the Delta, is a typical landscape. The masses of color and texture, the patterns caused by mechanized farming and harvesting, create images of considerable visual interest, evocative images rich with possibility.
Apart from its history, the Delta landscape is extraordinarily beautiful, a vast flatness continuing for mile after mile. Because the land is so flat, the sky and the quality of light is an essential part of the landscape.
This is a levee, gravel road on top, with a distant view of the Mississippi through the trees. The levee is very high, far above the level of the river, at least at this time of the year.
A closer view using the camera's optical zoom.
Loaded barges awaiting transport.
Close-ups of the opposite side, above and below.
Looking in the opposite direction, to the east, a hedgerow silhouetted against a background of changing pastels.
(Phillip Saperia contributed about half the photos in this post.)
James Golden