Roanoke photographer's project explores the lives of tobacco farmers 

For more than two years, Roanoker Sarah Hazlegrove has been globe-hopping, landing in Brazil, Malawi and Indonesia so she could visit each country’s tobacco farms with her camera and bring back images that would show what life was like for these farmers.

“I’ve never won anything in my life, but I feel like with this project, I’ve been so lucky,” Hazlegrove said.

The project is “Tobacco People,” a documentary photo book that will be published online and is sponsored by Philip Morris International and Universal Leaf Tobacco Co.

A lifelong artist, Hazlegrove, 54, comes from a family of artists and farmers.

Her mother, Lucy, and younger brother, Billy, a graphic artist and architectural photographer, have art degrees from the Rhode Island School of Design. Her older sister, Cary, is a photographer in New England and has published several photography books on Nantucket, where she lives. And although her father, Wilbur, is an attorney, he has just finished writing a memoir on the history of the family.

“My son Ben hasn’t escaped the family trend, either; he is an amazing musician,” Sarah Hazlegrove said. “His band is called Mansions on the Moon.”

She calls her family a cross between the Addams Family and the von Trapps — “we live and work like a pack of hermits spending long solitary hours working away at the thing we love doing most.”

The family dairy farm, Forkland Farm, is located in Cumberland County and is jointly owned by the J.W. Hazlegrove and W.P. Hazlegrove families. Sarah Hazlegrove said the family also grew dark-fired cured tobacco for more than 200 years.

Though she wasn’t sure of her calling earlier in life — she transferred from the University of Virginia to the Berklee College of Music to study jazz piano and then dropped out to move to France with a beau — Hazlegrove said she always carried a camera.

In her late 20s, she returned to Hollins University and graduated Phi Beta Kappa in 1990 with a double major in French and philosophy. She continued to do portraiture, something she picked up while in France, and event photography. But it wasn’t until her other sister, Page, died in 1997 from heart disease that she decided to do more “meaningful” work. Page was a glass sculptor who had works in the Boston Museum of Fine Arts.

Sarah Hazlegrove’s work on “Tobacco People” required a quick assessment of the environment. She calls it “Special Forces Photography,” because she only had an hour or two in each location. Her goal is to show how the farmers’ livelihoods are reliant on this industry while focusing on its history and traditions.

“People are proud of their heritage,” she said.

Philip Morris will be using the images in-house, andhe online book can be seen at issuu.com on Aug. 1. She answered some questions about herself and the project via email.

Q: Tell me about your family.

I grew up in Roanoke. I was born at Roanoke Memorial and lived just a block up the street from where I live now on Crystal Spring Avenue. So, although I live a nomadic lifestyle, my roots have stayed pretty well planted in Roanoke and to the neighborhood where I spent my early childhood. …

My dad always tried to be practical and told me and my sisters that we needed to get secretarial skills. We were way too wild for anything like that. The thought of being a … secretary scared me so much that it made me work that much harder at doing what I wanted to do. I do wish I could type faster though.

Q: Have you supported yourself as a photographer or done other work?

In my early 20s, when I was living in Paris, I took photos of ex-pats and their families. It was just a little side business but it brought in decent pocket money.

After I graduated from Hollins in 1990, I began taking photographs again and it soon evolved into a full-time job. ...

It wasn’t until my sister’s death in 1997 that I took a closer look at the work I was producing. I liked my work, it made people happy, but it definitely was not feeding my soul.

My sister Page’s death was the impetus for me to produce work that was more meaningful to me. I started to branch out taking photographs that had more to do with my personal interests and also explored the special nature of film and my perception of reality.

Q: Whose work inspires you?

Richard Avedon’s “In the American West.” Walker Evans and James Agee’s collaborative book “Let Us Now Praise Famous Men.”

Working in the field is a challenge. You have little control over anything other than your equipment and yourself. My style is studied, but quick in its execution.

During the almost three years working on “Tobacco People,” I didn’t have the luxury of lingering. You learn to assess the environment, the light, everything very quickly. … The photos are sometimes spontaneous, sometimes quickly posed and yet somewhat formal. I don’t like to exploit the people I photograph. I want them to like the way I chose to see them.

Q: What inspired you to pursue this project?

Tobacco has had a powerful impact on our world. So profound is that impact it would be difficult to imagine what the world would be like now if it weren’t for its cultivation and trade.

As Virginians, tobacco has played a unique role in our past. It is still a very hands-on type of work, there is a certain nostalgia attached to it where machinery hasn’t completely replaced manual labor. There’s a sense of earth, traditions; of families and agricultural practices.

The original idea for “Tobacco People” came from photos I took at our family farm in the late 1990s. I was working on the material for a show called “Farm Parts.”

The photographs from “Farm Parts” represented a breakdown of all the parts of our family farm, from cow udders to family portraits. I wanted to make a record of the way things looked. I felt a certain sense of urgency to preserve a way of life that was changing.

Q: How did you determine what countries to visit and tell me how you knew what you needed to photograph to tell your stories?

It was a group decision made by Philip Morris and myself. Indonesia, Malawi and Brazil were selected because they represent a good global cross-section of tobacco cultivation.

“Tobacco People” is about the farmers, their lives and the communities where they live. Each country has very unique tobacco traditions, so although we scheduled my trips over the two-year period so that I arrived at harvest time for each country, I also planned trips to include the special uses and processes of tobacco production that are disappearing.

During the first six weeks in each country, I met many farmers and had the chance to sit with them in their homes and talk with them about their lives. During the second six-week trip, I focused on land preparation and seedbeds but I also returned to the farmers I had singled out from my first trip and had longer visits with them. I wrote down their stories and filmed interviews with them. It was really great seeing the farmers on the second trips. Very rewarding! …

Before all is said and done I hope to include: China, Turkey, India and Cuba.

Q: Does it bother you that tobacco smoking is bad for you health? Or that your photographs are depicting an otherwise hated industry in a beautiful way?

Of course it would be a lot easier if smoking was good for you, wouldn’t it? It wouldn’t change history though, nor would it change my focus or my desire to make the most beautiful photographs possible.

The other side to the tobacco story is that there are hundreds of thousands of people around the world, not just the tobacco farmers, who are proud of their tobacco heritage.

The stories of the farmers in Virginia has lots of parallels with those in other parts of the world like Indonesia, Brazil and Malawi — this is hard labor, it’s one of the most difficult crops to grow, but what the farmers earn is good enough to fund a decent lifestyle.

Q: How did you decide what equipment to use?

I only used natural and available light. No flashes, no strobes. I had too little time between places. I use a very high-powered digital camera that also has video capabilities, but I am a purist, so I still used my old Bronica (medium format camera) to take the black-and-whites.

Q: How do you know when the project is complete?

I am not sure if this project could ever be completely finished. I could see this being a lifelong pursuit. For the moment though, there are still many other countries that would need to be included to make it balanced, as far as a “world view” of tobacco is concerned. The history of tobacco cultivation is too important and how it has shaped our world, too far reaching to just rest on four countries.

Q: What is the most significant thing you can take from this project?

You know that feeling when you take off in an airplane and as you climb to higher altitudes you realize how small and insignificant you are compared to the whole planet?

I love looking down at the houses and the cars as they get smaller and smaller till I can’t see them any longer and I only see the dark greens or blues of the Earth below.

I feel that we live our lives at the high altitudes most of the time. By that I mean we don’t see the details of the lives of the people living in the houses, driving their cars, living their individual lives. Because of my project I was able to explore the communities and the lives of hundreds of hard working people who are otherwise invisible, part of the landscape. It was an amazing gift to meet these people.

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