Bruce Berman Bruce Berman

El Paso Dreamin’

Town for sale, El Paso – Feb. 2010
From the movie The Border:
Marcy (Valerie Perrine) : (Showing her Border Patrol husband brochures about El Paso, trying to talk him into moving there, at their breakfast table, in Los Angeles) Honey sometimes you gotta dream.
Charlie Smith (Jack Nicholson) : (Pausing, furrowing his now signature brow) I never [...]

El Dia de San Valentin

La “MC,” Lidia, San Valentin Beauty Show
El Paso – Feb. 13, 2010
El Dia de San Valentin/El Paso, Texas
Candy? Flowers? Lingerie?
Furgidaboutit!
Beauty!
Big day on the border. Everywhere now. Billions in tooth decay. Billions in flowers grown in eco-destroying third world corporate gardens.
Bah humbug (or whatever malapropism you say on Valentin’s Day)!

Father, Son, Babe

Father, Son, Babe – El Paso, August 2009

The ‘hood Is Still Good

Copia Street, Jan. 4, 2010
Four blocks to the bridge, to the border.
Lots of foot traffic. It comes and it goes, north then south.
The neighborhood is changing as the Medical Center becomes a reality, but it’s going to be hard to erase what the neighborhood is.
This mural, sneaked in on the side of a little building [...]

Turtle In New Mexico

Turtle/New Year’s Eve 2009, New Mexico
Las Cruces New Mexico on New Year’s Eve 2009.
Turtle, 17, born and raised in this southern New Mexico town.
Apache.
Defiant and alive.
It was as good as Times Square.
Better.
2010 Resolutions?
Nah.
Just keep looking.

“WOKIKSUYE CANKPE OPI” (“Remember Wounded Knee”)

Marvin, a Pima Indian from Arizona, AIM takeover of BIA offices,
Chicago, Christmas Eve 1970
photograph by Bruce Berman ©2009
Dec. 29, 2009 / Wounded Knee Day
This is Wounded Knee Day. It calls for remembrance.
In the 120 year aftermath, the victims of Wounded Knee have still not received  justice, let alone, widespread acknowledgment of the murders of nearly [...]

Myths, Ghosts, And, This Window

Ghost View south, Dec. 19, 2009
Three of the last four posts have involved this window. The view to the south. One block to Alameda Street, two more down Stevens and, voila, you’re at the bridge, then you’re in Juarez, then if you keep going you’re on the carretera to Ciudad Chihuahua, then Torreon, then Puebla [...]

A Warm Farewell

A piece written to my photography students at the end of a fine semester at New Mexico State University. Forgive the “first person.” Originally posted on their class website at www.nmsu.documentaryshooters.com:

Brucini w/New Blan­ket from a Good Friend, El Paso –Dec. 9, 2009
So it comes to this, the semes­ter ends, we go our own way, we know more [...]

Alameda Street (Again)

Alameda Street #91, El Paso- November 2009
This street is changing. New Medical School and renewed Medical Center just down the block. Oh yeah they have the Grand Plan.
But the south side has its own Plan  and the hot paint keeps coming!
Yeah man, this street is the Grand Plan dealing with the No Plan, the natural [...]

“Rats” in a bad spot (or is it pretty?)

Pretty spot/bad times-Juarez 2009
Juarez / October 2009
Murders continue.
Record year.
Day of the Dead is coming. Like every day hasn’t been that.
The streets have an eerie decay to them. Litter. Boarded up windows. Still a lot of hustle but the nights are empty and in the shadows are things no one wants to see.