The day Paul Mobley asked a skeptical Michigan pig farmer wearing a torn shirt and three days of stubble on his chin to pose for a portrait, the New York commercial photographer had no idea that was the beginning of a two-year, cross-country odyssey.

Mobley, who shoots ad campaigns for the likes of Sony, Max Factor and AT&T, traveled 100,000 miles across 37 states photographing farmers and ranchers.

The result is American Farmer, published in October by Welcome Books and named one of the top 10 coffee-table books by Amazon.com.

Four New Mexico farmers are featured in the book, including the Española Valley's Don Bustos, a mainstay at the Santa Fe Farmers Market, and Nambé apple grower Dave Vigil. John and Josie York of Mimbres, N.M., and Louis Oliver of San Lorenzo, N.M., also are in the book.

Mobley is in town Saturday for a book signing at the farmers market and the Monroe Gallery of Photography on Don Gaspar Avenue.

These photos capture farmers and ranchers in their work attire, dirt under the fingernails, unadorned and unfashionable, the lines of a lifetime on the land etching their faces. Their skin colors are all the shades of America. Their portraits are in color, black-and-white and sepia.

"It's a beautiful book," Bustos said. "It really reflects the diversity of farmers across the U.S. When people look at this book and read the stories, they will get a sense of what rural America is about."

Their lives and words are brought to life by writer Katrina Fried.

Willard Scott of NBC's Today Show wrote the preface. Part-time New Mexican Michael Martin Murphey wrote the introduction.

In his portrait, Bustos grins widely between fistfuls of radishes on page 84, across from his words about caring for the land: "It's about having enough to eat and to grow and not abusing it because you realize that you have to use that land for future generations."

Nambé apple farmer Dave Vigil stares out from a sepia-toned photo on page 218, his bearded face bearing the structure of Spanish forebears underneath a black felt cowboy hat.

There are portraits of women like Mary Jane Strand, standing proudly on her cow and sheep ranch in Casper, Wyo., her gnarled hands holding a cane and her brow furrowed. Or rancher Alice Wiemers of Hondo, Texas, covered in bees.

There's the voice of people like soybean farmer Pat Hardy in Missouri, who rises with his three sons at 6 a.m. most mornings: "We like to smell the air before somebody else breathes it. This is my life ... and it's just a great life."

Embarking on the book "was a beautiful accident," said Mobley from his New York City studio.

After 20 years working in the high pressure world of commercial photography, he felt burned out. Mobley packed up and went to a Michigan cabin with his wife and two daughters to spend one summer regrouping.

He was sitting at a favorite coffee shop surrounded by working-class and farming people one day. He suddenly had the urge to take portraits of the people around him in their natural settings. No big lights. No fancy setups. "I took them as though I was someone who had never picked up a camera," Mobley said.

Working through the American Farm Bureau, Mobley went to New Mexico after Michigan, taking pictures of producers from Las Cruces to the Española Valley. In the end, he took 40,000 photos. Fried interviewed the farmers and ranchers. "It was one joyful experience after the next," Mobley said. "I found a basic human kindness that was a common thread through these farm families. It was the best experience of my life."

The book documents what many people think of as America's past, but in the current economic crisis, it might be a reminder of why old knowledge is worth holding onto. "People need to be kinder to each other and more respectful of the land," Mobley said. "This book seems to remind them of that."

Contact Staci Matlock at 470-9843 or smatlock@sfnewmexican.com.

IF YOU GO

What: American Farmer book signing by photographer Paul Mobley. Book features New Mexico farmers Don Bustos, Dave Vigil, Louis Oliver, and John and Josie York.

When: Saturday

Where: Santa Fe Farmers Market, 1607 Paseo de Peralta, 9 a.m. to noon; Monroe Gallery of Photography, 112 Don Gaspar Ave., 5-7 p.m.