Mother and son, El Central/El Paso, 2012
Light and Shadow and Mom and Child in Between
Street Photographer In Nicaragua
Developing a portrait, Granada, Nicaragua, February 1986
This photographer in the Plaza of Granada in Nicaragua is developing a portrait that he just made. Inside the box are the normal developing chemicals of Developer, Fixer. Once he has the photograph captured -on portrait size paper- he goes inside the camera through the light tight sleeve and goes from one mini tray to the next until he has the image “fixed.” He then pulls the photograph out and washes it on a tray of water that he has set up in a little bucket attached to the tripod under the camera.
His process was not as fast as the 60 second time for a Polaroid, but, close!
The X of Juárez
Juárez Night
Man In The Plaza Cervantina
Park Bench: Murder In Plaza Zaragoza
Boy At The River With Two Names
Man With A Box
Man with a box, Juarez – November 2012
©Bruce Berman
Fleeing La Migra 1990
Fleeing La Migra on The El Paso Levee of the
Rio Grande, 1990 – ©Bruce Berman
Centro Chicano Gone (In More Ways Than One)
Doroteo in front of the ruins of Centro Chicano
2011 ©Bruce Berman
Centro Chicano gone. Rosas’ place gone (goodbye early 19th century, hello Denver to El Paso bus station). Flea market gone (it was so, “messy”). Museo Urbano, barely here and now gone. Koreans on S Street seem to be throwing in the towel, going. Can’t sell to Juarenses that aren’t there. The bi-national plan rising like a phoenix, unchanged and in better shape than it was (thank you Cartel War).
I know where “El Paso,” is right now. Bright New World. Shiny. All’s they need is a theme park and it’s on its way.
But Chicano El Paso, the turf south of Paisano, south side, El Segundo?
Swing (In El Paso)
El Beso in El Paso
Lost In The “New El Paso”
Old couple in El Centro, El Paso
©2012 Bruce Berman
Muscle Grenade
Muscle Grenade, Las Cruces, New Mexico ©2012 Bruce Berman
Howlin’ Gator
Back From Teacherland: Watch Out!
Low Rider’s Crucufix, east El Paso-May 2012
©Bruce Berman
One sees the world through one’s own window. This is the Low Rider’s punta de vista. What’s your’s?
Rato Vato….I’m back!
Crossing the Rio without Confusion
Undocumented Women CrossingThe R2, Juraez-El Paso, 1984
Text and photograph by Bruce Berman
The river with two names: Rio Grande/Rio Bravo del Norte. Depends where you begin and where you end and where you return to. These women are heading north. It was a long time ago. Everything has changed and nothing has changed and I suspect it will continue to change and not change forever.
The river with two names, the R2, is also the place of the personality with two halves.
Confusing, no?
It is the place of bifurcation. But even that has two sides: twice as much insight.
Where are these women now? Which side happened to them? What happened to me? What happened to Juárez and the U.S.?
What happened to me?
I know this: people will cross going north no matter what and no matter the year. People will cross less, going south, depending on the year.
The river will flow south from Colorado (a Spanish name) to the Gulf of Mexico (an English language name).
And none of it matters to anyone living here except that one government makes it hard for another people to do what they have done for thousands of years and another government makes it necessary.
Who’s confused and who’s doing the confusing?
Man In The Segundo
Man in the Segundo, El Paso – Sept. 2011
Photo and Text by Bruce Berman
Man from Anthony, New Mexico, describing his younger days in the Segundo barrio.
The Segundo barrio is El Paso’s most historic neighborhood, hugging the border with Juarez, Mexico and architecturally intact from the 1880’s “railroad boom,” that brought fired brick architecture and “Chicago Brick (which is atypical red).” Some adobe structures go back to the early 19th century. This part of the city has had human habitation for thousands of years. Spanish travelers began European settlement at this place in the Rio Grande/Rio Bravo in the mid 1600’s.
The real significance of the Segundo barrio, however, is the Latino community and it is significant. The barrio, historically, was the first “stop” on the journey north to “El Norte,” whether it was a matter of days for rest or for a generation of orientation. Many people in El Paso trace their roots to family who lived in El Segundo barrio in their first years in the United States.
FOR CAFÉ TACUBA VIDEO (and the rest of this article):
Robot Geeks Attack El Paso
V.I.P. at Robo-Geek Fest, El Paso, Texas
all photographs by Bruce Berman
Robots at Robo-Geek Fest, El Paso, Texas
Robot attacks little girl at Robo-Geek Fest, El Paso, Texas
Story by Bruce Berman
El Paso —-
Four-wheeled robots wielding paintball guns took over the Western Technical College Northeast campus on October 15, when students from nine area high schools competed in the college’s first T-Robo Competition. The students design, program and build the robot vehicles.
The competition was part of a daylong event, which included a Geek Fest with demonstrations by area engineering and technology businesses, as well as Fort Bliss and White Sands.
There was a military flare to the event showcasing various careers in the STEM fields. STEM stands for science, technology, engineering and mathematics. Possible applications for the robotic vehicles would be non human operated military vehicles or “drones.”
Night Out With The Man Who Loves Dogs
An Iconic Survey of the Border Funklands:1975-2011
The Heart of El Paso/Alligators And Kids With Heart
Luis Jimenez’ Largartos (Alligators) in San Jacinto Plaza,
El Paso, Texas, July 2011 by Bruce Berman
El Paso —
by Bruce Berman
This is what kids do on their Quincineras in El Paso. They go to the heart of El Paso. They go to the downtown plaza, the “San Jacinto Plaza.”
This is what they want to record for a background, Los Lagartos, the alligators. They don’t go to the Mall. The Plaza theater around the corner really isn’t open to them (hey why not show movies? Why is it closed? It’s for “the people, isn’t it? Show movies in the daytime and they will come). Kids -and visitors- go to where their heart tells them there is a soul to the city: they visit Los Lagartos.
Do they even know why? Do they know that the artist who conceived and constructed the Lagartos was one of them, a local kid who once had a rented tux(I’ve seen the picture), celebrating like El Paso kids do, joyous and robust, almost free for a day (well that Limo driver is just out of camera range and is -unofficially- going to pass on a little mini spy report to the parents and they know it!).
Prom Night: The Boogie Man Is A Long Way Away
Prom Girl, El Paso, Texas -May 2011
Murder schmurder! It’s Prom Night in El Paso.
Those buildings in the background are downtown El Paso. The space behind, the mountain, that’s Juarez. That girl there, in the foreground, the one with the whimsy and the joy and the hopes and the fragility, she’s a million miles away from this borderland desert, that stupid and brutal war (Juarez), that trying parking lot monotony (El Paso), at least for this night.
What is the news anyway? Is it what “they (in my case, us)” say it is? Or is it the dreams of a young girl (or boy) on one of the most remembered nights of one’s life?
I’m thinking the news, the significant events of our world are days and evenings, like this. Viewpoint. Remember that (!) as we become addicted to trouble and stress and our live’s of “quiet desperation (you wouldn’t know it if you looked at TV commercials would you?).”
One can hope it’s that way.
Waiting For Work
Gator Skin And Diamonds And Color
Gator skin and diamonds, El Paso – May 2011
©Bruce Berman
El Paso –Six blocks to the border. There are diamonds. Well, they ought to be diamonds. He says they cost $250. I believe him. Sunday drive. Family in the Dodge. Stylin’ on Paisano Street by Bowie (Boooie). If you know El Paso you know the references. If you don’t it wouldn’t matter. Chuco street.
One of the riddles of photography for me is that every once in awhile there is an image that must be in color. Most everything I see and shoot is in B/W, but every once in awhile…
This dude is in color.
2 Princesas Practicing
2 Princesas practicing on Mother’s Day, El Paso ©2011 by Bruce Berman
Love Bug In The Border Desert
Love in the Desert 2011
by Bruce Berman
Window Full Of Coffins
View of El Paso from Juarez,
April 25, 2011 by Bruce Berman
Juarez –You keep hearing that “Juarez is dead.” Juarez is not dead. It’s stripped, diminished, bruised and humbled but is it is not dead.
Most small business commercial strips are shuttered or just smashed and abandoned.
The streets are amazingly empty, the bustle and sheer madness of the traffic that was Juarez is gone. That Petromex smell of burning diesel that always hung in the air, along with the smell of fresh tortillas and dust, lessened.
But it is not dead.
Garry Winogrand And Milliseconds Of The Oblique
Garry Winogrand. Off kilter. Off beat. And right on in capturing the milliseconds of the oblique.
Watch this video and think about Garry lassoing the non-monumental. He was a wild puppy and full of life. Just enjoy the fun.
A memoir: Meeting Garry Winogrand
by Bruce Berman
Garry was a photographer and a winner of prizes: three Guggenheim Fellowship Awards (1964, 1969, and 1979) and a National Endowment of the Arts Award in 1979. He was a street guy and he was, most of all, a New Yorker. His photos reek “NYC.” He was hugely famous and revered in the 1970s and 80s.
In Outside
Inside Out by JR
Editor’s Note: This is an amazing project. In the era when people worry about the demise and/or future of journalism, when academics question the effectiveness of journalism in a 24/7 news cycle world, there is JR, who is producing and promoting another form of photojournalism and not only bringing his subjects into the communication process, he is bringing the work done on the subjects back to their environments. Check it out:
About JR the artist:
INSIDE OUT is a large-scale participatory art project that transforms messages of personal identity into pieces of artistic work. Everyone is challenged to use black and white photographic portraits to discover, reveal and share the untold stories and images of people around the world.
See the video: