Posted by Bruce Berman  

2010-2011 Queen of Heritage Days (and her son Lorenzo),

Darlene Pino, Magdalena, NM, July 2010

©Bruce Berman

October 1938. “Princesses on float at the National Rice Festival parade.

Crowley, Louisiana by Russell Lee for the FSA.

Text by Bruce Berman

Russell Lee went to a lot of parades, festivals and public events. So do I. Most information-oriented photographers do. It’s a good place to shoot because people are busy having fun, not thinking too much about what purpose a photographer might have for the photographs and a good photographer can come home with a lot of images that show people doing things, living life, interacting.

Some call this Street Photography.

One thing about the two photographs above that are interesting to me: the “Queens,” in the Lee photographs are young. In mine, the Queen is in her sixties. The places I went in New Mexico did seem older. People, in the country, perhaps, were mostly Baby Boomers. There are young people in the rural areas of New Mexico but they reportedly head to the cities looking for work, and, perhaps, excitement. Some head to college and never return.

Whether my experiences can be substantiated by data, I’m not sure. Doesn’t matter because that’s not how I work, anyway.

I don’t go out to gather facts and data. I hunt for  “feel,” and impression and, in the end, moments of magic. Whatever the facts are I can live with th the one you can read in a photograph. I do believe what I see and I see that rural, New Mexico and Texas is ageing.  Perhaps it was this way  in Russell Lee’s era, but I doubt.

My next step will be to go to more cities that Lee visited, places I know the young population of America has attracted, places that attracted Lee in his youth -Chicago, New Orleans, Albuquerque, Kansas City- and see if my theory “holds wa

Tags: New Mexico, Russell Lee, Small Town contests, U.S.60