Lauren Greenfield

Lauren Greenfield may not have shot the U.S. Mexican border but her work has explored similar cultural borders inside the U.S.  Her project Fast Forward explores the cultural divide in Los Angeles during the 90′s by looking at kids and how they grow up.

In one part of L.A. you have kids so rich they have walk in closets jewelry and ride in limousines to premieres. In other parts of L.A. you have kids who run in gangs and see prom as the end all be all of their teenage existence.  You even have vast differences in the ideals of beauty.  The white girls tend more towards the Twiggy ultra thing look, while the latinas have a more classic voluptuous look.

You can check out more of Greenfield’s work at her website:

www.laurengreenfield.com/

 

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Border Film Project

The Border Film Project gave disposable cameras to minutemen and illegal immigrants. The project was developed by Brett Huneycutt’s, Victoria Criado and Rudy Adler as a way to show the personal side of the border issue. The photos captured by the border crossers would be impossible to get otherwise.

 

 

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Bruce Berman

Bruce Berman is a photographer who works on the border of El Paso, Texas and Juarez, Mexico.  His photography of the border has run in the New York Times, Reuters and Der Spiegel and many other publications. Berman makes images that you would expect to find in an album of snapshots–albeit with much better composition than most people have.  His style shows his subjects relaxed and exposing their more natural sides.  Much of his work is in black and white and has a perfect tonality.  Almost as if Richard Avedon did photojournalism.

Photo by Bruce Berman

One photo on Berman’s blog perfectly exemplifies how I see his work.  The photo is called ‘Maria Full of Grace,’ while the tonality of the photo is fine-art perfect, the dodging is masked in a way as to give the woman an aura; drawing you into her face.  Subtle lines in the background lead you to her face as well.  Once you arrive at her face you’re stuck. While most portraits catch you with a direct gaze confronting you this woman stares above your head. The reflections in her eyes muddy what she is seeing revealing only the bright horizon. She looks as if she were seeing into the future.

The candid style of the photos creates an instant emotional attachment.  While most photographers speak of access in terms of areas, Berman seems to have negotiated his access to the emotions of his subjects.

Check out his website

Check out an exhibit he did in Las Cruces last year

 

 

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David Taylor

Before there was the border wall there were obelisks designating the boundary between Mexico and the U.S.. David Taylor is a Guggenheim-winning photographer who has been documenting the markers for years.  In the process of documenting these sometimes remote markers.

Taylor has captured images seen by only a few people.  In spending time with border patrol he has been able to see smugglers, drug busts and migrant detention centers.  Taylor is a good example of documentary photography.  He is able to hang around so much he is a fly on the wall and his images show it.  For anyone interested in the subject of the border his frank and neutral style allows you to build your own conception of what is going on.

Taylor’s project “Working The Line”is often cited as one of the most neutral projects on the issue of the borderwall. While the project first started with documentations of the obelisks themselves, but has come to be much more a statement about the border in general. In his time working the images have begun to describe a border region with an only sometimes distinct boundary.

Check out his site: http://www.dtaylorphoto.com/

Check out his book “Working the Line”:  http://radiusbooks.org/1493/david-taylor-working-the-line/

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First

The first post on a blog usually sets the stage for later posts; this one is no different.  I will be looking at how the US-Mexico border has been covered by photographers.  Each photographer’s project will be scrutinized so that one can glean the ramifications of it easily.  This way everyone will be able to understand why someone might want to shoot the monuments that define the border or why someone might shoot ranchers all along the border.