Late Night waitress (who said she’d do “almosty anything
to get out of this town”),) Clovis, New Mexico. 2010
by Bruce Berman
I hope she did (without the “anything),”
ALMOST ANY WAY OUT
JEAN’S GAMS, EL PASO, TEXAS
Jean’s Gams, El Paso, Texas, 1975
Photo and Text by Bruce Berman
All the signs are gone, or gone to a hipster bar somewhere in America. The Funk is sanitized. Hosiery bar? Really? How un Gucci.
For me that era was a treasure chest waiting for me to open it and when I did… TREASURE!
You got anything to compare to this, now?
Somehow the Walmart Women’s section just doesn’t have the juice.
Is there anywhere on this planet now that isn’t manufactured?
I think there is.
Not sharing. Going. My soul needs authenticity. I guess everyone’s does. We’re on our own.
FRANZ MARC, INGE MORATH AND THE BLUE HORSE
The power of unintended consequences. Inge Morath, an early chosen photographer at Magnum, first became interested in Art at the Nazi’ exhibition Entartete Kunst (Degenerate Art) in Munich in July 1937. The exhibit was meant to be a disparagement of “modern art,” and was championed and attended by Hitler and other Nazi Party luminaries.
For some the consequence was the oppoosite of their intentions. One of those was the young Inge Morath, a fourteen year old Austrian girl. It was her first encounter with a art and as opposed to being opposed to the art she encountered, she loved and in particular the art of German artist Franz Marc‘s Blue Horse.
INFO on Franz Marc:
https://www.thehistoryofart.org/franz-marc/blue-horse/
Mask Series, Los Angeles by Inge Morath, no date
LITTLE ITALY BABE SISTERS
Little Italy Babe Sisters, NYC, 2000
Photo and text by Bruce Berman
(Disclaimer on this post’s title: Spare me, I don’t care!)
In the middle of chaos, glory! Three sisters. Puerto Ricaños. Read their personalities! It’s right there. Happy. Proud. Sexy. Confident. Even the waiter is having fun. A lazy wandering day, sitting at a street cafe in Little Italy at a tiny round table, slurping Italian Ices, with friends, Abraham Verghese and Irene Connelly, heading to the U.S. Open. Happy day for me, tennis, before the political deluge of now.
Photography works in a lot of ways but the best of all is memory.
ADELITAS
A female revolutionary in Mexico. Circa 1912-1913 
Soldaderas, before a battle, 1911
A group of rebel women and girls practice their shooting skills during the Mexican Revolution. 1911.
I have always been -and still am- amazed by the Adelitas that followed and fought with the revolutionary army during the Mexican Revolution (1910-1920.
Interesting that we’re having a controversy over including women in the draft.
The Adelitas volunteered.
“ROSIE” WAS MULTIRACIAL
Operating a hand drill at Vultee-Nashville, woman is working on a “Vengeance” dive bomber, Tennessee 1943 Feb., all photographs by Alfred T. Palmer/OWI (Office of War Information)
Poster using Alfred T. Palmer’s 4″ X 5″ color transparency
Shot for the OWI, used by the U.S. Employment Service
For more of Palmer’s work, click here.
FSA, MINORITIES, AND FAKE NEWS
Article by Bruce Berman
The Atlantic Monthly just published an article about the FSA (Farm Security Administration) and how minority Americans (African-Americans and Latino Americans) were ignored by the FSA during its four year run.
It’s title is: Whitewashing the Great Depression.
It is factually misinforming.
Four years ago I co-authored (with my colleague Dr. Mary Lamonica) an article titled, “The Photographer as Cultural Outsider.”
It focused on Russell Lee and his 1949 project shot for George I. Sanchez who was the first Latino Dept. Head at UT-Austin and one of the early Civil Rights warriors in LULAC (League of United Latin American Citizens). Sanchez had created The Study of the Spanish-Speaking People of Texas project. Lee, of course, was an FSA shooter of great renown and prestige (and later OWI/Office of War Information). He had settled after his WW 2 service in Austin, Texas, the same city as Sanchez’.
Our article was a little more nuanced than the Atlantic piece and delved into the issue of cultural identity of the photographer (or writer or filmmaker) in shaping not only his/her viewpoint but how various ethnic subjects react to a photographer.
CHICAGO WOMAN WITH A BIG HAT, 1940
John Vachon, Chicago, 1940
MEXICAN SOLDIERS
Niño soldado by Augustín Victor Casasola (below, center), June 1914
HOPPING CARS
July 1942. “Chevy Chase, Maryland. Serving supper to motorists at an A&W Hot Shoppes restaurant
on Wisconsin Avenue, just over the District line,” by Marjory Collins for the Office of War Information
Read More: https://www.loc.gov/rr/print/coll/womphotoj/collinsessay.html
SCHOOL GIRLS ON A BUS: NO FLICKERING
School Girls on a bus in Juárez, 2002
How many times have I wanted to cross over the Bridge to Juárez, jump on a ruta autobus and never return to mi lado (the other side, El Paso, America) again?
A bunch of times. Actually, in the last decade, every time. ¡Muchos tiempos!
When I go to Juárez I realize within minutes that the bubble I live in America is a prison not a home. It’s a construction. A development.
Instead of working this feeling out, I take photographs, like an archeologist, always trying to root out what this means, and, for a very long time that has been enough.
GIRL AT A COUNTER
Girl at a counter (from ChiTown Journal), Chicago, by Bruce Berman. 1968
Photograph and text by Bruce Berman
Getting closer on the Chitown Journal book. Having to dig really really deep into old files. Feels bad and good! The hardest part is seeing what a total rookie I was and how few good images I produced. It tells me the ability to become an image-maker is a journey not a condition. In teaching, it is obvious, this generation with great cameras always in their hands and the ease of making images has sped up the process.
So I dig around in the past and watch them consume the present.
I guess I’m not the “new kid on the block” anymore.
SOUTHSIDE WEDDING
GRANDMOTHER ON THE ROAD
GYPSY ROSE
1941 publicity photo for Gypsy Rose Lee’s
first novel, The G-String Murders.
Article by Bruce Berman
Gypsy Rose Lee was the most famous “stripper” ever. She started out in Burlesque at seven years of age in 1921, transitioned from Vaudeville to Burlesque and was the premier act in the legendary Minsky’s Burlesque. She appeared in sixteen motion pictures, numerous TV shows and authored the book Gypsy in 1957. The book led to the all time great Broadway play Gypsy and she was a ubiquitous personality in multiple media for over five decades.
Very early in World War II, Gypsy Lee was active in promoting patriotism and supporting the troops. In magazine articles she praised American servicemen and even offered to send an autographed pin-up portrait to any GI who asked for one. She encouraged women to take jobs in the war industry and participated in a benefit to raise money for an organization that provided child care. Gypsy performed at dozens of USO shows in a 1943 tour that visited forty Army and Navy posts across the country.
Lee died in 1970. The play “Gypsy” is still played in major and minor productions and still draws audiences worldwide. There haven’t been many like her -if any- since.
One of her best-known quotes is, ” If a thing is worth doing, it is worth doing slowly… very slowly.”
DIVER
Circa 1892. “Woman diving from pier.” J.S. Johnston
Ami Vitale; Beauty, Power, Life
Hungary Baths by Amy Vitale©2011
From Ami Vitale’s website (http://www.amivitale.com):
Ami Vitale’s journey as a photojournalist has taken her to more than 75 countries. She has witnessed civil unrest, poverty, destruction of life, and unspeakable violence. But she has also experienced surreal beauty and the enduring power of the human spirit, and she is committed to highlighting the surprising and subtle similarities between cultures. Her photographs have been
exhibited around the world in museums and galleries and published in international magazines including National Geographic, Adventure, Geo, Newsweek, Time, Smithsonian. Her work has garnered multiple awards from prestigious organizations including World Press Photos, the Lowell Thomas Award for Travel Journalism, Lucie awards, the Daniel Pearl Award for Outstanding Reporting, and the Magazine Photographer of the Year award, among many others.
Now based in Montana, Vitale is a contract photographer with National Geographic magazine and frequently gives workshops throughout the Americas, Europe and Asia. She is also making a documentary film on migration in Bangladesh and writing a book about the stories behind the images.
Andrea Bruce Shoots You In The Heart
Ingushetia by Andrea Bruce
Andrea Bruce is a passionate, stylish, skilled documentary photography who’s images -in the best traditions of still photography- sear your soul and drive their point through your heart, restoring it instead of terminating it. She is the new breed of documentary photographer that blends all the skills of good journalism with all the skills of great graphic image-making and produces a coctail that is nothing less than photo alchemy.
Take a look: http://www.andreabruce.com
Dhiraj Singh: Video Biographer
[pro-player]https://documentaryshooters.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/08/my-name-is-dechen.flv[/pro-player]
“My name is Dechen.”
Watch this touching video done by Dhiraj Singh.
He did an interesting thing: A Video Biograph.
In a way, all Visual Journalists who do stories on people, are doing “biography,” but with the addition of audio, where the subject can speak for themselves (edited, of course), where the image-maker can animate the images and drive the viewer’s emotions, the subject of the story becomes more “alive,” the depth is ratcheted up, and, potentially, the medium is beginning to resolve the age old struggle of photojournalism: Who’s viewpoint is this about? The subject’s or the photographer’s?
Prostitution: Pain
©2009 Photograph by Mimi Chakarova
GO TO: http://www.mclight.com/slideshow.html
Editor’s Note
This is one of the most painful documentaries I have ever seen.
Even more amazing is the fact that the work is not the slam and splash type of photojournalism that deals in blood, guts and flames.