Photo of the Week

The sword of Juarez

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The sword of Juarez-November 2008

There’s a sword hanging over Juarez. The sword of Juarez. Murder. 1500, this year and we have a month to go. A drug war? A crazy’s war. Get it over with. Somebody win the war for turf, already. Nobody cares. Get it over with, one side win, one side lose, then send your drug shit to the gringos and let the people go free, let them come out of their houses at night, let the undertakers worry about their bills, again. Somebody win, already, because nobody is winning at all.

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border photography, chihuahua, el paso juarez border, Juarez, Mexico, Photo of the Week, US/Mexico Border

Angry princess/Princesa enojado

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Angry princess/Princesa enojado, El Paso-October 31, 2008

El Paso, Oct. 31 (Halloween), 2008

Halloween on El Paso Street, the first (or last) block of America. Everyone is dressed and laying a festival veneer over the street. 5:30pm, people still rushing to the bridge to Juarez to get home (especially these days, trying to get home before dark, before the murders begin).

Cookie is one angry Chihuahua.

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border photography, chihuahua, Discussion of Documentary Photography, el paso juarez border, Juarez, Mexico, Photo of the Week, Photography Tip, US/Mexico Border

Ciego Musico/Blind Music

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Calle Juarez, Ciego musico/Blind Music, Juarez – 1982

Juarez

This man played in the streets of Juarez for all my first years in La Frontera. He was blind. He was small. He made music like a special desert bird, joyful to bathe in just a drop of water, joyful to sing, even to the passing and witless American tourists.

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border photography, chihuahua, el paso, el paso juarez border, illegal immigration, Immigration, Juarez, Mexico, Photo of the Week, US/Mexico Border

Mist and mirrors: facts and fictions

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Mist and mirrors d’town, El Paso – 6:38:51pm/July 28, 2008

I am supposed to be packing right now. I have a job in another city. It starts in three weeks. I won’t be leaving. This corner, this light, these people, their shadows, have inveighed my life for an adulthood…a long time.

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border photography, chihuahua, el paso, el paso juarez border, illegal immigration, Immigration, Juarez, Photo of the Week

Border fools and border delights: You gotta look hard

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americo1lores.jpg

Americo with prayer shawl, yamulke and guitar,

Segundo barrio, El Paso – July 26, 2008

Why do I ever leave my loft?

Went to the gym where a friend of over three years, a retired professor at the local university, someone who has never displayed anything but kindness and goodwill, out of the clear blue, no warning, told me “…the Jews got what they deserved after all the stuff they did as bankers in Germany, don’t you think?”

Wha-a-a-a-a-a?!

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border photography, illegal immigration, Immigration, Mexico, Photo of the Week, US/Mexico Border, Violence on border

Mexico’s other border

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SEE VIDEO: http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/video/player?titleID=1372185572

Borders. North and south. Mexico is a yin yang of the first order.

See what’s going on on the southern border and get some insights into what’s going on on the northern one.

Article by the always interesting and powerful Charles Bowden with cut-to-the-bone humane photographs by superb Magnum shooter, Alex Webb.

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border photography, chihuahua, el paso juarez border, Immigration, Juarez, Mexico, Photo of the Week, US/Mexico Border, Violence on border

Juarez murders: it’s complicated

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Protesting policeman, Juarez -March 2008

photograph by Julian Cardona

Photo and story by Julian Cardona

March 31, 2008

About 50 Juárez police officers protested what they consider the arbitrary arrests of fellow officers by the recently arrived Mexican army in ciudad Juarez. They were protesting the alleged framing of numerous officers on charges of drug possession.

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border photography, Discussion of Documentary Photography, illegal immigration, Immigration, Photo of the Week, Violence on border

Immigration abuse never ends. Jacob Riis: Concerned Photographer

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“Slept In That Cellar Four Years,” 1890-92

“Slept in the cellar (of a Ludlow Street tenement)

where the water was ankle deep on the mud floor”

View more work -and hear an excellent NPR audio clip- by the great Danish-American documentary photojournalist. He was one of the first to use “flash,” (first introduced in Germany in 1887). Riis cast the mold for what a “Concerned Photographer,” is, and launched a century of relevant, motivating and society-changing “witnessing.”

Editor’s Note:

For more images and audio clip: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=91981589

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American Highway, border photography, el paso, el paso juarez border, Photo of the Week

Roof Cam: Borderlands Suite

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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.

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