On Labor Day, it seems an appropriate time to think about the nature of work. In America, the idea of good, secure and rewarding work is under siege. In the Corporate Nation, jobs are only as good as the market that day, and people can be tossed out into the street as simply as trash, perhaps more easily, really, in that they don’t have to be carted off and recycled. The bottom line and budget are the only prime considerations in the work lives of many people, and in a country founded on the notion of people choosing hard work that left them and their families secure, that is an enormous change. One of the many reasons I love photographing people like Ed Rouse, his daughter Judy and the family farmers is that they struggle so hard for the idea of independent work, work that keeps their families safe and sends their children out into the world to live their own productive lives.

Ed works hard, and his task sometimes seems hopeless, given the challenges facing family farms, and the fact that so many family farms are succumbing. But Ed is a teacher in his own way, and so are his children. They remind us that work is precious, and to accomplish anything of value you need to work hard, have dignity and respect, and feel that your work is worth it. Ed reminds me to live my life. To write my stories day after after day and not succumb to the fear, hysteria, and obsessions with bottom lines that seems to have infected the very idea of Labor Day.