Bullseye with Jesse Thorn Photographer Noé Montes
Feb 27, 2026
Noé Montes, a Los Angeles photographer known for documenting migrant farmworker communities and fine-art work, discusses his journey from community college darkrooms to a museum retrospective. He talks about photographing Cuyama Valley, portraying multi-generation family stories, wrestling with police portrait commissions, and stripping away symbols to show honest, personal images.
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Farmworker Photos Often Erase Identity
- Photographs of migrant farmworkers are usually landscape abstractions that erase individual identities.
- Noé Montes noticed search-image patterns where workers are shown as hunched shapes without names and set out to reframe them as people with stories.
Growing Up Migrant Shaped His Lens
- Noé Montes grew up in a migrant farmworker family and worked in the fields from about age eight through his teens.
- His parents came from Michoacán, the family moved every six months following harvests across California and sometimes Arizona.
Focus On Leadership To Reframe Farmworker Stories
- Montes deliberately avoided anonymous 'bultos in a field' imagery and instead photographed farmworker leaders close-up.
- He interviewed community members and focused portraits on those who emerged as leaders to reframe narratives about agency.