Bale Cubic

Living and working for a time in Hale County, Alabama, the filmmaker and photographer RaMell Ross—who otherwise resides in the Northeast—aimed to reflect the slower pace of local life through staged, poetic scenes. In conversation with county residents, Ross encouraged them to set up unexpected interactions with one another for his camera. He achieved the same sense of quiet surprise in other scenes that show only the surrounding farmland and rural environments. Ross’s intriguingly quiet compo-sitions convey the juxtaposition of contemporary culture and agrarian life in a small corner of the United States.