Francesco Mastalia

ORGANIC is a photo documentary featuring over 100 farmers and chefs of the Hudson Valley by photographer Francesco Mastalia. The Hudson Valley has become an epicenter for the local organic sustainable food movement. With its rich agricultural land, the awareness for sustainable living, and the growing demand for local, organic food, the farm-to-table, ‘locavore’ movement has become a way of life in the Hudson Valley. “Organic” is one of the most misunderstood and often misused words describing food today. In narrating their stories, the farmers and chefs share their philosophy about what it means to grow and live organically and sustainably. ORGANIC is not just about growing and producing food, it is about the life of the planet. It is about preserving an agricultural tradition that will safeguard farmland for future generations. ORGANIC spotlights the Hudson Valley as a region at the forefront of this movement. It features the dedicated farmers who are committed to growing and producing food using sustainable methods, and the chefs who echo their beliefs and pay homage to the food they produce. The portraits of the farmers and chefs were photographed using the wet plate collodion process, a technique developed in the mid-19th century when the art of photography was in its infancy. The amber toned images remind us of a time when the cultivation of land was a manual process that linked the farmer directly to the soil.