Bi in Juarez
Roof Cam: Borderlands Suite
Roof Cam #8, El Paso – June 2008
I’m driving around my city. I’m moving my operation a little to the north of where I am now, north of the border, north of the borderline, north of my reality. I’m already feeling separation depression. So I drive around my turf of 30 years. I don’t have to look anymore, I know the bricks, the cracks, the fault lines. I’ve shot them a million times and re-shot them. I stick the camera out the sunroof and let the car become part of the camera. The car is the camera. and I tour my myth. This is between me and it, not meant for others. All of my work is getting there now, it’s between me and it.
Another distant border in Hell
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Man who crossed the river
PHOTO OF THE WEEK (#2): May 16-23, 2008
Man who jumped the river,
waving at his friends in Juarez (in triumph),
standing on US side/ El Paso-Juarez, 1990’s
Moving day ( a bad pun)
PHOTO OF THE WEEK (#1): May 16-23, 2008
Moving the man, Uptown (upper Broadway Street), Chicago, 1969
I have moving on my mind. I don’t do it often. When I do it is a reincarnation for the better or worse. I am about to do it. In so doing, I came up with this image from the boyhood of my life as a photographer. One of the very first. I still like the street puns.
Dreamland USA (se fue)
Remnant #37, Less gas/Alameda Street, El Paso, Texas – May 12, 2008
“Gas for less.”
Less gas.
This is not a glitch, it is the changing of a culture.
Usually when a culture changes -sorry Barack- it is the result of a calamity: Depression, war, pandemic, natural disaster. Were it not so, but “change,” is not engineered. Eventually, it is managed.
Juarez: Music and bullets in the air
Juarez harps(?), May 2008
There hasn’t been so much gunfire in Juarez since 1910. Since Jan.1, there have been over 230 drug war-related murders.
There was a time in Juarez -bourgeoise and ugly Americano, for sure, but what the hell- that it was just the old fashioned sins: getting drunk, dancing, straggling around with whatever “date,” that’d allow you to put your hands on her ( or whatever) and, if you survived, you crawled home over the bridge to El Paso and woke up late the next day.
The bridge that divides
PHOTO OF THE WEEK: May 2-9, 2008
The bridge that divides, El Paso to Juarez, Jan. 2008
The Paso del Norte bridge between Juarez and El Paso. This is a bridge in hell.
Stuck in Juarez: Time warp (siempre es lo mismo)
PHOTO OF THE WEEK: April 25-May2, 2008
Stuck in Juarez, colonia Avicola-1989
The Silva family came to Juarez with the intention of crossing the border, into the U.S. and then traveling to the Midwest, where a family member had preceded them. They intended to work in agriculture in the wheat fields of Kansas. A dream. The American dream. It wasn’t to be their dream.
Headphones
PHOTO OF THE WEEK: April 18-25, 2008
Headphones, segundo barrio / El Paso – Jan. 31, 2008
Headphones Ninth Street and Oregon. The first street north of the border in El Paso, Texas. Jan. 31, 2008.
El Patron de Las calles: Robert Frank
from The Americans
Robert Frank
b. 1924
“I am always looking outside, trying to look inside.”
This is da man! King of the road. He saw what everyone saw but he saw it through a 35mm camera and with a critical eye. To look at it now -the Global Village which used to be just America- needs a new eye. The question has been out there for awhile: What have we become?
Polaroid no mas. Fotografos estan proxima!
PHOTO OF THE WEEK: April 11-18, 2008
Polaroid no mas/Polaroid no more, Juarez – 2008
Polaroid Corporation announced in early February that they no longer will make Polaroid instant cameras or film.
This announcement, world wide was greeted, mostly, by a collective shrug of the shoulders and a “ho-hum.”
For Juarez street photographers the news was immediately alarming, living-threatening, and was a call to action for a new learning curve to transition to digital photography.
Woman at protest
PHOTO OF THE WEEK: April 4-11, 2008
Distressed woman at protest at Lomas del Poleo, Juarez-2007
Juarez is in flames right now.
Drug war is raging. I’m calling it a drug war. It’s a lot of things war. Always is.
Primavera in the borderlands
White Sands National Monument, NM – March 20, 2008
Spring has sprung in the desert. If only for a moment…time to play.
Nasty Bunny
Nasty bunny, Easter/Pasqua in Juarez, 2007 – Juarez, Mexico
BOY IN THE PLAZA
Boy in La Plaza de los Lagartos, El Paso-1976
La Plaza/A Memoir
I went to the plaza today.
It was deserted.
Happy Halloween
Woman in Juarez Maquila plant / Juarez, Chihuahua
Banks lend money to Americans to buy homes they can’t afford. The homeowners live in a dream bubble, the American Dream bubble. The lenders sell their paper and ride off into their millionaire dream. Everyone’s dreaming.
In Juarez they’re dreaming too.
Leap #7
Leaping into the Rio Grande/Rio Bravo, El Paso-Juarez
Leap into the river with two names
Leap Day in the Leap Year 2008. Let’s all take a leap. Come on…why not!
This boy and his friends use the river with two names as a playground, a swimming pool, a back yard.
Why not.
Two Girls en la Colonia
Two girls getting ready for school in Colonia Avicola, Juarez-2007
It’s the little moments that work for me.
It’s an exquisite privilege to disappear. It doesn’t always happen. It’s really great -for the photographer- when it does. Photography out in the open, in other people’s realities, nobody even noticing.
Jesus With Trophy
Jesus at the bridge, Feb 11, 2008-El Paso
Prounouns
Working on my series, “Lives Separated.”
Jesus come over the bridge from Juarez with this giant trophy.
“It’s the trophy we got for playing Juarez, we played Juarez football (soccer),” he says not saying who “we,” or,”they,” are.
Disappeared Mute Girl
Disappeared mute girl returns home, Juarez, 2001
Maria Monteros Rodriquez had been looking for her daughter Carmen for days. She had disappeared without a trace from their central Juarez home.
Play: Before The Fence
Before the fence, Rio Grande/Rio Bravo, El Paso-Juarez – 1989
Notes from my Journal
Immigration. Swim, drive, and crawl. People do what they need to do and making them do any of the aforementioned things, put lives at risk.
The river is more than a highway of migration, though.
In the summers, when it’s hot, the river is a giant pool.
People play.
The river is polluted with chemicals from upstream pesticides from the farms, loaded with garbage and debris, has really tricky currents that, every summer, takes lives.
But people live in that river. That river is life for many in Juarez.
If the Jefes could see past their own little tight plans, this would be THE development that would be right for El Paso/Juarez: Play in the river.
Too simple, though, huh?
This girl is clinging to the El Paso side bank. ILLEGAL! La Migra comes and chases her away and she joyously splashes back to the Juarez side where her friends and family jeer and gesture at the Border patrolman. Everyone is having a good time. The Migra laughs, waves, knows he’s part of this great immigration farce, climbs back into his Suburban and drives off and the girl –and her friends- come back, swim to the U.S. side, pose for pictures, live the evening.
The sun sets. I go home. I played in the river, too.
One of the border Patrol’s favorite PR releases is about how their agents saved people from drowning. There’s one or two or three every year.
They never mention people caught playing. Before the fence.
Roberta’s Glued Head
PHOTO OF THE WEEK: Jan. 25-Feb. 1, 2008
Roberta’s glued head (Head #14), Las Cruces, NM, Jan. 18, 2008
You can leave the border but the border does not leave you. My head snapped when I saw Roberta Flores, up in New Mexico.
“Terrific hair,” I yelled at her. “Gelled,” I asked?
“No,” she said with a sly and proud smile, “Glued,” she shouted back, with a grin that sort of said, “gotcha!”
“Did you get that done around here? ” I asked.
“They don’t know how to do that around here,” she spat, friendly but gently ridiculing.
Light Storm
Light and storm, downtown El Paso, Jan. 15, 2008
Still on mental vacation. What else do you do? Drool and look up. This is the border. Believe me the storm is coming in and not going out. As it always is. As it always was…
Running Dog
Dog running north, El Paso-Jan. 2008
Bull Boy
Retratos de la Corrida, Bull boy, Juarez – 2002
I’m a little weary of border politics, for now.
I return to the streets and hope the disorder of life gives me shape and form.
Politics and News seem to work on a linear arc.
Facts. Information. Plenty to tell. Endless detail and weight and nuance. Narrative is interesting but one of the things I’ve always liked about doing photography is the occasional punch in the gut you get from just being somewhere (often where you shouldn’t be).
Photography can work as a fact machine, but when it doesn’t and it’s just image, impression, reaction, light, when there is more than the sum of the parts, I like it the most.
Waiting For Antonia’s Release
PHOTO OF THE WEEK: Jan 4-11, 2008
Waiting outside the police station jail
for Antonio’s release, Juarez, Jan. 4, 2008
Editor’s Note: To understand this week’s photo it might be useful to read the background of the story of the struggle of the people of Lomas del Poleo. Link number one is two years old, but is, I think, a fair history of this situation. The situation has gotten worse. Link number two is a video discussing the bi-national plight of people who are in the path of “development,” and are facing forced displacement. Another option is to google Lomas del Poleo.
Beware: Knowledge is trouble.
http://www.annunciationhouse.org/news_winter2005_dispute_en.html
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tEqkytwHQ5s
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This was a sad day, one that has been coming for a long time. The confrontation at Granjas Lomas del Poleo, in Juarez is coming to the tipping point.
Los Cartoneros
Cartonero Armando Hernandez Lamas, El Paso – 12/28/2007
Cartonero Alejandro Gonzalez, El Paso – 12/28/2007
Cartonero Hernandez in central El Paso
Cartonero Gonzalez, central El Paso
Armando Hernandez’ handmade tricicleta
Los Cartoneros
In a desert, on the border, nothing much gets wasted.
Cartoneros, paper haulers, collect discarded and surplus paper and card board from border streets and from border merchants and haul it on their customized ” tricicletas.” They then sell it to scrap buyers, located about a mile from the border shopping district in the Segundo barrio.
Cameraphone session, 5:15pm, December 20, 2007 / Centro El Paso
Cameraphone session, 5:15pm, December 20, 2007 / Centro El Paso
El Paso’s El Centro, the downtown, is packed with people at Christmastime. Unlike most cities of the southwest and of the rest of the United States, El Paso’s downtown is alive and bustling at all times of year, but especially during this season.
Juan y David, Segundo barrio, El Paso, Texas / summer 2006
Juan y David, Segundo barrio, El Paso, Texas / summer 2006
Spring and summer of 2006.
“Revolution,” in the streets. Faux Revolution? Revolt. Spurt of protest? Quien sabe?
Remember? The immigration demonstrations and walk outs?