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…
Light Storm
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
____________________________________________________________________________
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?
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.
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.
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.
Mop man and fancy man, Juarez – November 2007
Mop man and fancy man, Juarez – November 2007
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.
Border Mass
All Soul’s Day Mass at the border,
Sunland Park, NM/Anapra, Chihuahua
November 2, 2007
All Soul’s Day, Border Mass, NM/Chihuahua border
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.
Musico del Centro
Paricio Valazquez, musician for 49 years, El Paso, October 2007
Paricio Valasquez has played his guitar in the cantinas of downtown El Paso for more than 49 years. He is fully wired.
Homeless Happy Birthday
Homeless Happy Birthday, El Paso, October 19, 2007
Regino Olivas-Mendoza, 47, hangs around a car wash in central El Paso. He wears a sign that says, “Homeless today, Is my birthday, can you help me?”
Los Veteranos de Martino’s
Veteranos de Juarez, December 2006
 Ramon Covarrubias Quintana(l) and Francisco Barraza(r) are waiters at the old Martino’s Restaurant on Juarez Avenue in Juarez, Chihuahua, Mexico. The restaurant is located two blocks from the Paso del Norte Bridge that connects downtown Juarez with downtown El Paso.
Martino’s – and these waiters- harken back to the “Golden Era,” of Juarez,
Amada and Love
Amada, Central Cafe, Juarez – 1992
Amada, Central Cafe, Juarez – 2007
Amada has worked the counter at the Central Cafe in downtown Juarez, since the early 1980’s. The cafe is next door to the cathedral and is a major crossroads for buses -and most of all, people on foot- heading to all directions in the city. The cafe is a crossroads, the city’s heart, and a center of transition and change.
Thoughts On Time
Women and the Red Bus -Oct. 1975
October 5, 2007
A funny thing about photography and time: it can capture milliseconds and it can capture decades, and all in the same photograph.
Panteon Nuevo de Juarez
28-October 5, 2007
El Panteon nuevo, Juarez, Chihuahua, Mexico – 1988
The cemetery came before the barrio. An ultimate act of realism.
Corn Rows In Armijo Park
Cristo Rapper and his wife, Armijo Park, El Segundo Barrio, El Paso / 16 de Septiembre 2007
This was a 16 de Septiembre event in Armijo Park in El Paso. Armijo is in the heart of the historic Segundo Barrio. Armijo is a people’s park. This neighborhood is in, actually, the only”urban,” neighborhood in El Paso (hard to define but you know it when you see it: Life exists on the streets)
CHIHUAHUA IN CHIHUAHUA
Chihuahua de Juarez-Juarez, Chihuahua, Mexico / March 2007
Street photographer heads home with his horse
Juarez Street photographer heads home, 1982
AZTEC GREETER
Aztec warrior y cuties , Juarez / July 2007
Not much to say.
Sometimes there are just sweet moments.
Juarez. El Centro. Photography (They: pointing and shooting and remembering it. Me: the same…exactly). Hot. Summer. Lots of humanity but no frenzy. Nothing false. The show is real. No goal posts, no hot dogs (well, kind of). No band (well…a little). Skin. Innocence. Joy. A little Love.
Juarez.
Astronautas de Juarez
Two girls on a field trip, Juarez, Chihuahua, Mexico / June 2007
Two Juarez girls hamming it up at the NASA traveling exhibition that was shown at the Centro Municipal de las Artes in downtown Juarez, Chihuahua, Mexico in May through June.
EL OSO
Soy Un Oso, Hugo in El Segundo / Feb. 2007
Hugo(last name not given) shows his high school “colors,” on Father Rahm Street on El Paso’s south side. It is twilight and he has been working on a mural at the Sagrado Corazon church’s gym.
The FBA
Black Cross on the FBA, August 2007
Summer on the FBA. Hot. 100.
This is Father Rahm Street, which is, actually, Fifth Street. Around the corner is El Paso Street which is the first block of America (or the last, depending on where you’re coming from).
Around the corner, to the south is where the Paso del Norte bridge from Juarez empties out. There are stories on this street, big life-journeys begin here. This is where dreams begin. Some people have called this the “Ellis Island of South America.” Maybe that’s the draw for me (my Father was born on that other immigration island in 1907). That was another dream. These are places where dreams can start.
The Black Cross mural for the violence against women in Juarez appeared a couple of years ago. Then they put a bus stop in front of it (dumb). Then they took the bus stop out but painted over the text (also dumb) about the violence to the women.
Whatever. Life passes and passes strongly. This is where I have spent a lot of my life.
Nothing stops the energy on the FBA. People are looking for their place, their direction, their dream. I’m looking. I’m there almost every afternoon.
GIRL ON THE RUN
The First Street of America #7, El Paso, Texas / August 2007
Sixth and El Paso Street is the first street in “America,” after crossing over the Paso del Norte Bridge from Juarez, Chihuahua, Mexico into El Paso, Texas. This is the crossroads.
FAMILY OUTING
Man and three daughters, Colonia Felipe Angeles, Juarez / June 2007
Lost Musician In Juarez
Musico perdido en las ruinas de Juarez / July 2007
El Centro, the downtown of Juarez, is going down.
La Mariscal, the zone of shops and bars and (say this quietly) brothels north of El Centro, the commercial zone north of El Centro stretching to the border with the U.S., is being demolished and is, mostly, gone.
The “Plan,” has come. Progress is here. Now there is hope for those who need the border to be “clean.”
It shall be sanitized.
Dignified Man #12
Dignified Man #12
Cool Norteno, Plaza de Juarez – Juarez, Mexico / June 2007
The Plaza de Juarez in Juarez, Mexico is an ancient crossroads. The plaza stands in front of the Mision de Guadalupe, a church established in 1659 along the El Camino Real. The plaza today is still a crossroads and a transportation hub and, on Sundays, is vibrant, eclectic and fully the heart of the old Centro Juarez. Much of the area north of the Centro, the Plaza, and the Mision, the area between the old Juarez commercial district stretching north all the way to the U.S. border and El Paso, is currently, being demolished. The demolition is clearing the way for a commercial development that is projected to link up with El Paso’s south side and Downtown, also scheduled for demolition, just across the river to the north.
The transportation hub that has made the Plaza de Juarez the intense and interesting center of Juarez that it is, is scheduled to be relocated away from its current location.
The “Cool Norteno,” garbed in standard norteno clothes, and others, may or may not survive the “development.”