Border Portraits

Border Pawnshop Portraits, El Paso, 1983-84

Proverbial circumstances brought me from Manhattan back to El Paso in 1982 where I worked five days a week alongside my father and two older brothers in the family's business, a pawnshop named Dave’s just north of the bridge to Juárez, Mexico

On my days off I wandered El Paso, trying to conceive photo projects, but I found the environs bare there and not open to easy portrayal. The landscape is horizontal with only rare variations in the light. Every day was sunny and bright, like there was an arc-lamp in the sky casting black, zone-zero shadows.

But five days a week I spent in a very busy border pawnshop, talking to a constant stream of vagabond humans, one after another, all day long.

Soon I was dragging specimens of this flow of souls from out of the pawnshop and sticking them on the sidewalk directly under the desert sun, mapping the landscape of their faces with a macro lens and slow speed film.

These are some of them:

S El Paso St. -- Ernest "Weasel" Brawley       S El Paso St. -- Chava       S El Paso St. -- Chico Hawkeye       S El Paso St. --Bill "Happy" MacGuinnes

S El Paso St. -- Unidentified #2       S El Paso St. -- Alberto Cerda       S El Paso St. -- Alan Sittingbull       S El Paso St. -- Luis Urrutia

S El Paso St. -- Alfred "Snuffy" Ellicock       S El Paso St. -- Albert Munoz       S El Paso St. -- Carlos Gonzalez       S El Paso St. -- Joe

S El Paso St. -- Chuck O'Bailey       S El Paso St. -- Chief       S El Paso St. -- Beverly Penn       S El Paso St. -- Daniel Williams

S El Paso St. -- Creech       S El Paso St. -- Col. Daniel Sprague       S El Paso St. -- David Reyes       S El Paso St. -- Tony Gleaton

S El Paso St. -- Josue Correa       S El Paso St. -- Guadalupe Villalpando       S El Paso St. -- Eleazar Gomez       S El Paso St. -- George Waters

S El Paso St. -- James MacGrew       S El Paso St. -- Jesus Atilano       S El Paso St. -- Irene Rodriguez       S El Paso St. -- Ho

S El Paso St. -- Jose Herrera       S El Paso St. -- Harry Cooper       S El Paso St. -- Ana Bingham       S El Paso St. -- Jose Gonzalez

S El Paso St. -- Jose Lara       S El Paso St. -- Jose Angel Gonzalez       S El Paso St. -- Jorge Balderama       S El Paso St. -- Eddie Battle

S El Paso St. -- Leonard Matson       S El Paso St. -- Luis Lara       S El Paso St. -- Jose Uranga       S El Paso St. -- John Mahon

S El Paso St. -- Cerillo Soriano       S El Paso St. -- Miller Summerour       S El Paso St. -- Jose Rodriguez       S El Paso St. -- Mary valencia

S El Paso St. -- Maria Duarte       S El Paso St. -- Porfiro Ibaven       S El Paso St. -- Molly       S El Paso St. -- Martin Thirman

S El Paso St. -- Maria marin       S El Paso St. -- Paul Cantrell       S El Paso St. -- Nemecio Garcia       S El Paso St. -- Pablo A La Torre

S El Paso St. -- Mr. Hinckley       S El Paso St. -- Unidentified #16       S El Paso St. -- Sookie       S El Paso St. -- Reverand Frederick Barron

S El Paso St. -- Rev Fred Richardson       S El Paso St. -- Red Crummel       S El Paso St. -- Becky Cortez       S El Paso St. -- Ruben Urrutia

      S El Paso St. -- Unidentified #8       S El Paso St. -- Ruly

S El Paso St. -- Robert Bolton                   S El Paso St. -- Ramon Huerta





            S El Paso St. -- Victor Acuna       S El Paso St. -- Winston DeSelles

S El Paso St. -- Will Brady       S El Paso St. -- Unidentified #28

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