Ford arrow, Las Cruces, New Mexico, by ©Bruce Berman, 2015
DISEMBODIED FORD
Disembodied Ford, La Mesa, New Mexico, 2017
EGGLESTON
Untitled, William Eggleston (c.1966-71) by William Eggleston
DUST BOWL GLASSES
Photograph: Dust Bowl gear, 1930s, by Margaret Bourke-White
HIGH SCHOOL BEACH
High School Beach, Venice, California, 1949 by Max Yavno
Max Yavno worked as a Wall Street messenger while attending City College of New York at night. He attended the graduate school of political economics at Columbia University and worked in the Stock Exchange before becoming a social worker in 1935. He did photography for the Works Progress Administration from 1936 to 1942. He was president of the Photo League in 1938 and 1939. Yavno was in the U.S. Army Air Corps from 1942 to 1945, after which he moved to San Francisco and began specializing in urban-landscape photography.
He was one of several post war photographers who lived and worked in what became a new culture, the Southern California middle class leisure car culture.
EXIT ZERO
Exit Zero, New Mexico/Texas Border, 2018
EVIL EYE
Evil Eye (of Google), El Paso, Texas, 2018
If a dude you don’t know was in front of your casita taking pictures, wouldn’t you go out and ask him/her what they’re doing? Would you not feel righteous indignation (your home is your castle…. why is this cat snapping photos of my castle?)?
Why does Google have a right to drive up and down the streets of this world taking pictures of your home? Who made a law making that alright? Where does this end? Is there an X-Ray camera that can penetrate the outside of your home and looks at your inside? When does that machine get arms and legs and jump down and punishes you -inside or out- for what they think is a “transgression? Is that OK for Google to do? Or the Government? Or your worst enemy? Or the local pervert?
Who is this OK with?
PISTACHIO
Pistachio in Alamogordo, New Mexico, 2015
The pistachio, a member of the cashew family, is a small tree originating from Central Asia and the Middle East. The tree produces seeds that are widely consumed as food.
OR….
Is a ginat sculpture in Alamogordo, New Mexico.
DOCUMERICA: ARTHUR TRESS
Abandoned Car in Jamaica Bay 06/1973 by Arthur Tress/Documerica Project
For more information on Arthur Tress click here.
THE GRID STARTS HERE
Exurbia 8. East El Paso, Texas, 2018
THE KEY TO HEAVEN
El Paso, Texas, 2016
Photograph and text by Bruce Berman
This is about “it” folks.
The last of this barrio, this old ‘hood, known in earlier days as El Pujido (the “push” referencing some knife fights the deteriorating barrio came to be known by in the fifties and sixties).
From the west is coming a vicious storm of hipsterism, of micro brewery culture, restaurants with fuzzy foo foo pinched across the top of, well, some tiny thing underneath.
ONE NATION
One Nation. Memorial Day, Fabens, Texas, May 2018
TWO WAY HORSES
Horse barn. Mesilla Valley, New Mexico, 2018
Photograph and text by Bruce Berman
The Mesilla Valley extends from Radium Springs, New Mexico, to the west side of El Paso, Texas. It is intersected by the Rio Grande river (which becomes the Rio Bravo on the Mexican side, which begins in El Pas/Juárez) The valley is characterized by its few remaining bosques, as well as its native cottonwood trees.
REDOING THE CLOCK
Redoing The Clock. El Paso, Texas, 2018
It’s been 5:00 o’clock at The Clock on Dyer Street for as long as I’ve been in El Paso (43 years).
It’s reassuring that time does not change particularly after 43 years (if you know what I mean).
But even in a land where time stands still, once in awhile, roadside signs need to be renewed.
It’s an art form. The letters are made of rubbery plastic. You have to know what you’re doing and this phantom sign renewer does. Name? Withheld. Working for the restaurant? Not saying. Getting paid? Maybe.
It’s almost 5:00PM for this image. It’ll be almost 5:00AM in twelve hours.
Even a broken clock is right… twice a day.
TRUCK WARRIOR
We like old cars because they’re like older people. A little twisted, Smashed up a little. Never gonna be what they were. Their very existence holds clues and mysteries about where they’ve been, what they did, where they lived, what happened to them.
The mysteries: What happened to twist her teeth? When did her paint disappear? What color had she been before the golden rust appeared? What tasks did this truck warrior perform through her long and, I am sure, honorable service? Who mourned her decent?
These things we will never know. There’s the limitation of a photograph: her past cannot be known, nor her future. There is only this, my noticing of now.
I guess the ultimate question is, does she still run?
¿Se serve?
If so, who does she serve and what service is left to do?
ERNST HAAS
I studied with Ernst, briefly, in 1979. He was a great guy, very honest and one of the most elegant people I ever met. He got excited by Mahler while everyone else was getting excited by the Rolling Stones!
His photography mirrors that elegance. Whether it was for himself or a commercial client (he did a lot of really great stuff for Lufthansa) the work was always personal and usually intriguing.
Enjoy Ernst: http://bit.ly/2BlQZcB
Terry and the Dinosaur
Terry and the Dinosaur, Benson, Arizona
October 8, 2011 by Bruce Berman