These photos were made in the summer of 2018, during a documentary trip along the US-Mexico border in Texas. The vastness, fragility, harshness, remoteness, and overall great beauty of the region were evident over the course of almost 2,000 miles, in areas away from border crossings and population centers, but where people still live, work, raise families, and travel. Mexico and the United States are visible in most of these. The Rio Grande is often a narrow strip of water wending through rugged landscape and even a golf course. Houses, recreation areas, and places that evoke awe or we take for granted and even neglect carry the same subtext: this is the frontier, where one land ends and another begins. The broken backstop of a basketball goal would allow a missed shot to continue its arc into the Rio Grande. Vacation homes sit empty in the summer heat, mere feet from the border, waiting for their seasonal visitors. A sign warns of danger in crossing an almost dry river. A bilingual couple, he a US citizen, she a Mexican citizen, cast for fish on the Gulf of Mexico, where an ethereal sunrise cuts through an already hot and humid August morning, as it has before since before nations, people, or even life on this planet.
We imagine nation-states and their borders. We have to work to realize liberty, justice, and equality for people.
These images were made with a traditional film camera, from El Paso to the Gulf of Mexico.
We imagine nation-states and their borders. We have to work to realize liberty, justice, and equality for people.
These images were made with a traditional film camera, from El Paso to the Gulf of Mexico.