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.

Continue Reading

Interview with two Magnum greats

Editor’s note:

This is an interview with Magnum photo greats, Elliott Erwitt and Burt Glin.These are the oldest current members of Magnum, the great photography cooperative founded, in 1947, by Henri Cartier-Bresson, Robert Capa, Robert “Chim” Seymour and George Rodger. For a certain kind of photography -our kind- this is a group of top notch shooters with really interesting work. If one needed to summarize the “vibe,” of Magnum, the word we would choose is, “Humanistic.” We’d define that as a passion for telling the truth -visually and emotionally- about humanity, all of it, with a predisposition to the idea that, as Anne Frank said, “I still believe…most people are good.” Magnum shows the full range, always entertainingly. These two photographers, are its heart and soul and treasure.

Pia Frankenberg

April 22, 2008

Magnum’s reputation is not just based on extraordinary photography. What distinguishes the members of the photoagency, which was founded in 1947, is character. The legendary Magnum photographers Elliott Erwitt and Burt Glinn talk about moments of opportunity, courage, independence – and humor. This interview was conducted by Pia Frankenberg in December 2006 and was first published in Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung in January 2007.


USA. New York. Dance School. 1977. The image is from part of a photo story about “upper class” children getting dancing lessons and being taught the “social graces”. © Elliott Erwitt/Magnum Photos

Pia Frankenberg: Since when do you two know each other?

Burt Glinn: We first met in 1952 or ´53 I guess.

Elliott Erwitt: In the morning, I think.

Continue Reading

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.

Continue Reading

Stuck in Juarez: Time warp (siempre es lo mismo)

PHOTO OF THE WEEK: April 25-May2, 2008

familiasilva-copy.jpg

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.

Continue Reading

El Patron de Las calles: Robert Frank

streetcar11.jpg

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?

Continue Reading

Polaroid no mas. Fotografos estan proxima!

PHOTO OF THE WEEK: April 11-18, 2008

fotografo-lores.jpg

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.

Continue Reading

Check the updated Blogroll/Photolinks. Great new sites!

The mainstream of photography, from its inception, has been Documentary Photography, the straightforward act of visual description for distribution to an interested audience. Some would argue that its utility as a means of information has passed and that other media -video for example- serve that function in more effective ways.

Hog wash.

Still photography is the perfect abstraction of reality. It is based in reality, works best when trying to describe reality and becomes pure magic when used in the service of learning -usually beyond the control of the photographic practitioner.

Check out the new and updated Blogroll (right) and suck in the inspiration and knowledge that these documentary photographers provide. Nothing, for me, does information better than photography.

See and feel the work. That’s why it was created.

Continue Reading

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.

Continue Reading

Roberta’s Glued Head

PHOTO OF THE WEEK: Jan. 25-Feb. 1, 2008

robertasglued-head-head-_14-lores.jpg

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.

Continue Reading

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.

Continue Reading

Waiting For Antonia’s Release

PHOTO OF THE WEEK: Jan 4-11, 2008

guadalupeafuera-lores.jpg

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

____________________________________________________________________________

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.

Continue Reading

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.

Continue Reading

Waiting in Juarez, 2007

Waiting in Juarez, 2007

Waiting.

It’s hard to remember the last time I was waiting for something and not pressured to be thinking about the next stop, the next appointment.

Leisure?

Barely remember that…

Slow time? Time seems to be on steroids, going faster and faster.

So I came across this guy and time seemed stopped. He was waiting for the grieving and the return of the dead to his vehicle.

Continue Reading

Tattoo, Juarez – 2007

Tattoo, Juarez – 2007

Flying tattoo on the window. That’s what I was after. Beautiful.

What I got was the Universal Salute?

Priceless.

He didn’t like me? No, I don’t get that. I do struggle with why I shoot on the streets. What right do I have, who appointed me? There’s some kind of thing I got into my head about documenting and witnessing and leaving the artifact that has driven me for a long time. So I do.

I like the fact that the tattoo-ero sends something back. He’s got a right. We all do what we’ve got do.

So, I get my tattoo in Juarez.

It’s not always peace and love out there.

So be it. ‘Ta bien.

Continue Reading

Boy On The Hill, Juarez – March 2002

Boy On The Hill, Juarez – March 2002

Someone observed, generally, that in so-called third world countries, poor people have to live on top of hills and mountains (where it is more difficult to get water and where roads are rough and barely existent), but in first world countries the rich like to live on top of hills and mountains, for the “views.”

And the status.

Continue Reading

Locked Out At Lomas del Poleo

Locked out at the Human Rights Forum, Juarez, Chihuahua, Mexico

October 20, 2007

A group of 150 people from different grass roots and human rights organizations from Juarez, El Paso, Guanajuato and Mexico City, arrived in a school bus and private cars at noon, October 20, to discuss globalization, displacement, human rights violations and femecide.

Continue Reading

Border Mass

All Soul’s Day Mass at the border,

Sunland Park, NM/Anapra, Chihuahua

November 2, 2007

bordermass2-lores.jpg

All Soul’s Day, Border Mass, NM/Chihuahua border

nunasborder-lores.jpg

Nuns on both sides of border fence

Sunland Park, New Mexico/Anapra, Mexico

Today the Bishops of El Paso, Las Cruces, NM and Juarez, Chihuahua, Mexico met at the border fence at Sunland Park, NM and Anapra, Chihuahua to protest current immigration policies and to promote understanding for immigrants from Mexico, as well as world wide.

Continue Reading