Somewhere on a farm in Britain, there is a sorting machine that lacks irony. Thousands of carrots are processed in an hour, and each one is measured against an exact template that specifies acceptable length, curvature, and other characteristics. Before they ever make it to a grocery store shelf, those who fail—too bent, too forked, or too aggressively themselves—are turned down. At the conclusion of that process, photographer Tim Smyth concluded that it was worthwhile to take a closer look at what the machine discarded.
At first glance, his bright orange book, Defective Carrots, which includes 56 of those rejected specimens, appears to be a complex joke. Then it doesn’t. Each carrot is photographed by Smyth like how a rare specimen might be shown in a natural history museum: it is isolated, carefully lit, and given room to be studied without interruption. There are some hideous carrots. Some are almost refined. He seems not to have attempted to conceal the fact that a number of them are blatantly phallic. They have one thing in common: they may have been seen correctly for the first time.
It’s worth pondering how bizarre that is. These were items that were judged by an automated system to be so visually deficient that no human eye had ever seen them. Smyth completely overturns that conclusion by treating the carrots with the kind of intentional attention that suggests they matter, rather than by claiming that they are secretly beautiful in the traditional sense. Here, a lot of the work is done by the photographic approach. With careful lighting, even a twisted and forked carrot begins to resemble something that belongs under glass against a plain background.
Smyth seems to be conscious of the larger discussion he is joining. The project came at a time when food waste was starting to become a real policy issue: campaigns against misshapen produce were starting to gain traction, and France had recently passed legislation prohibiting supermarkets from throwing away edible food. Defective Carrots is not reducible to that cultural moment, but it does fit into it. It doesn’t have the style of an activist pamphlet. It reads like a photographer observing something and pursuing the idea wherever it takes them.
The implied question of who establishes the standards and why we accept them so fully is what keeps the project going. Produce aisles are more carefully chosen than most people realize, shaped by retailer expectations that consumers have grown accustomed to over decades. The sorting machine is not arbitrary; rather, it represents a consensus that was established and, most likely, could be reconstructed differently. Smyth doesn’t use words to support that claim. He accomplishes this by keeping a crooked carrot motionless long enough for you to observe it.
Depending on your contributions, the project may have different meanings. From one perspective, it’s a reflection on food waste and the ridiculousness of aesthetic standards. From a different perspective, it’s just a photographer selecting the ideal subject—the moment something that would otherwise be thrown away is held up and given a proper examination. Both readings seem accurate. Smyth appears to be drawn to topics that are on the periphery of official attention. He received his training at the London College of Communication and has completed projects on political violence and absence. In that situation, rejecting a carrot is not such an odd decision. It’s simply something that hasn’t yet been meticulously photographed.
FAQs
1. What is Tim Smyth’s Defective Carrots project?
A book featuring 56 farm-rejected carrots photographed like fine art specimens.
2. Why were the carrots in the project rejected?
A sorting machine discarded them for being too crooked or irregularly shaped.
3. How does Smyth photograph the rejected vegetables?
Each carrot is isolated against a plain background with deliberate, careful lighting.
4. What broader issue does the project connect to?
It questions who sets beauty standards for food and why we accept them.
5. Where has Tim Smyth’s work been collected?
His photography has been acquired by Yale University and MoMA.
