Roger Hagan - Photographs and Observations

2011-12-09T13:52:00.000-08:00

First summer
Sara Virginia, Seattle 1967

2008-06-04T13:08:00.000-07:00

The laundress' boy was called Chino, of so I thought.

I learned later that Chino is a name for a specific racial mixture (not including Chinese) in Mexico's very fine-grained system of categorizing racial mixtures, a system centuries old, elaborated in many series of paintings one sees reproduced still all through the country. (One set of originals is in the museum in Chapultapec Castle in D.F.) Mexico was a very inter-racial nation long before The United States or European nations were. Not that this made class distinctions any softer or less limiting.

"Casta divisions were the most important component in the Colonial language of power, and the Inquisition reflected the need to distinguish in order to punish accordingly. The notorious casta paintings of 18th century Mexico speak volumes about an obsession with racial mixture and the fear of the ensuing social upheaval," wrote Baltasar Fra Molinero of Bates College.

As I recall, a Chino includes African heritage. Chino may have been so nicknamed because of his curly hair and dark skin.

2008-06-04T13:02:00.002-07:00

Fred Chez, with Marco Antonio and Isidorio, one of the hitchhikers, waiting for Omar to shoot the ball. Mrs. Peña allowed the boys in but disapproved of them. Isidorio was dark-skinned, Omar lighter. The little boy was the son of the laundry woman who worked for the Peñas.

2008-06-04T12:57:00.000-07:00

Marco Antonia Peña

Friends in Guadalajara seeking the family learned from people living on that street that Mrs. Peña and Maria had both passed away. The effort to find Marco Antonio were stymied by my failure to note his full name. Mexicans like Spaniards have both a maternal and a paternal last name, and I had not made note of the other name.

2008-06-04T12:52:00.000-07:00

My room was through this doorway to a separate structure off to the left. My friends could come and visit me and play basketball in the courtyard with Marco Antionio Peña, the Señora's son, a medical student. When I was able to move around, he took me to visit his medical school, part of the University of Guadalajara.

2008-06-04T12:49:00.000-07:00

The Señora and Maria seated in their "sala abierta."

I have no recollection of their interior rooms. I do not believe I ever sat with them inside, or had a meal at their table. My food was brought to me in a little room in the back of the house.

2008-06-04T12:45:00.000-07:00

Señora Peña and her daughter Maria.

2008-06-04T12:23:00.000-07:00

The house of the Peña family, where I was taken that evening. I recall the address as 34 Guadalupe Victoria. I lived here for a week. The generosity shown me by this family was remarkable, and is still characteristic of Mexican people, as Earl Shorris points out in his book of 2004, The Life and Times of Mexico.

This address is about ten blocks from Instituto Cabañas. where I exhibited the 1953 photographs and told this story to the press in 2008. All attempts on my behalf to find surviving members of the family failed. The house is no longer there.

2008-06-04T12:03:00.000-07:00

Back to Guadalajara in 1953: Fireworks in front of the cathedral for the Fiesta of the Virgin of Zapopan. Just a few blocks from here, my exhibit of this and other of the photographs was to take place in 2008, in the month of May.

Right after I took this picture, I fell ill. Dysentary, probably from eating the oysters back outside of Mazatlan. Since we were camping on the roadside outside of the city in what was then open country to the North, my companions, Fred and the Mexican hitchhikers, left me there the next day at my insistence. I said "Go back into Guadalajara and enjoy the paseo on Sunday," since in those days young couples strolled around the square in front of and beside the cathedral to see one another and perhaps meet, in the style of 19th century Spain. I said "Come back tonight and I'll probably feel better."

So they left me on a cot, well off the highway at the edge of a cleared area left by road crews. I did not think I would be noticed by cars whizzing past. Next to the cot were a canteen of water and two rolls of toilet paper for my frequent rushes into the nearby bush.

As I lay there, I noticed one car slow down and a family inside studying me. It must have been an odd sight, but one that told its own story fairly clearly. A few hours later, the same car came back from its excursion and pulled into the clearing. A woman and her grown son and daughter were in the car. The woman got out to speak with me. I had enough high-school Spanish to explain my situation.

She said "You will not be better by tonight. You will not be better for a week. Have your friends bring you to our home in Guadalajara, and we will give you a room to sleep in and proper food to see that you recover and can resume your trip soon." She gave me her address, and drove away.

2008-05-15T08:09:00.000-07:00

An Exhibit in Guadalajara in May, 2008 of 72 of the photographs from "Mexico 1953"

Talk at the opening "conferencia," Guadalajara, May 8 2008, at Instituto Cabanas

I suppose the first question I should deal with is whether the photographer of all these
old images is still alive.

That is not as easy to answer as it should be.

In fact he was very young and serious about photography, but in a few years his career
took him away from still photography for many years.

I finally managed to use some of his skills as a filmmaker. I shot many documentaries
and television commercials and slide shows for my own company and others. But in
retirement, with time to review it all, I think the best work was in those early years,
when his enthusiasm and purpose was purely seeing.

I want to read you some words from the great critic and curator of photography at the
New York Museum of Modern Art, John Szarkowsky, from his book of 1977, Looking
at Photographs.

"In childhood, each of us was open to dramas of the senses, revealed in terms that
were trivial and ephemeral: the way leaves move, the lost space between the
window screen and the glass, the reflection of the sun from a hand mirror on the
dressing table, slowly tracing its elliptical course across the ceiling.

"Many of us forget the existence of such experiences when we learn to measure
the priorities of practical life, or we find that they are rare or elusive.

"A few, whom we call artists, maintain an easy intimacy with these wonders of
simple perception. In this century many of these have been photographers, and
the exploration of our fundamental sensory experience has been in large part their
work. It is photography that has continued to teach us of the pleasure and the
adventure of disinterested seeing."

2

It has been observed that the development of any adult skill may depend upon freezing
some moment of childhood. All scientists are forever four years old, wide-eyed and
self-centered. All writers are always eight years old, hyper-aware and resentful. And all
magicians and, I would say, photographers, are eternally twelve years old, having first
felt the power of making a magic box work and gaining control of people’s wayward
attention.

The magic box for us is the camera, that ultimate gadget, which finally might enable us to speak about reality with something like eloquence. And behind it stood the occult
magic of the darkroom to master.

Twelve it was for me, first with a Kodak Brownie camera. At 13 I gathered my
earnings from delivering morning newspapers and purchased a real camera, a small
Speed Graphic. In the 1940s, news photographers used Speed Graphics, only larger.
It was my rite of passage. I shot events and sports for the high school paper, and set
out to explore the city and beyond.

Or rather, he did.

3

In what sense should photography be considered art? We are all surrounded by
photographs all our lives. They do the job of communicating reality, but are they art?

In the 20th century, the idea grew that some photographs should be viewed as art.
The distinction seemed to come down to their intent. Was the photo taken to serve a
purpose, like an ad or a news or sports photo? Or was it to share a personal vision,
a way of seeing, and was that way worth experiencing?

When we view any art, this is a question we ask. Do I want to explore this artist’s mind?

The artists that produced beautiful or striking images with cameras began to shape
the world of art photography in the second quarter of the 20th century. They were my
models — I knew not why. Adams, Weston, Cartier-Bresson, Doisneau, Eugene Smith,
Walker Evans, Alvarez Bravo, Frank, and the great artists whose work Steichen
gathered in The Family of Man. Then in the 1960s and 70s their work began to be
seriously criticized, analyzed, exhibited and published. And collected. And then
photography became art.

Szarkowsky, who succeeded Steichen at the Museum of Modern Art was a key figure
in this development.

His collections and writings gave a rich meaning to the idea of noticing. of seriously
considering a photograph’s content and intent. When I discovered his work in the
1990s, it was exciting. I felt justified in all the time I had spent making images for
many years with no client or known destination. And what he said, what I would like
to say, is get close. Notice the immense amount of information in a photograph.
And notice what narrative is its apparent intent.

Mind you, the intent you find, the story you write, may not have been the
photographer’s. For Szarkowsky that did not matter. Photographers often do not
think through why they make a picture. But if they are worth watching, chances are
that their fast choice arose from a background of aesthetic learning and judgment,
and it reflects an interesting attitude toward humanity or nature: loving, angry or
dour, reverent or humorous, and a respect for design, structure and composition.

4

Your interpretation of a photograph will reflect your own life experience. If it is
interesting or touching, the photograph will have done its work.

(I then shared my own observations about a few of the photographs the
young man made.) I am in almost the same position as you, for I honestly do not
remember taking most of these photographs, although I remember the trips.
Here you are hearing what I experienced in 2004, when I first returned to this
box of 400 old negatives and began paying real attention to them.

(Since this would take the pictures out of sequence, I omit this conclusion here.)

2008-04-02T21:06:00.001-07:00

An international style residence in Guadalajara. Fred and I were interested in the spread of modern architecture in Mexico, which was more accepting of Bauhaus International style than the United States. It seemed to harmonize with the pre-Columbian architecture.

2008-04-02T21:04:00.001-07:00

The city gate of Guadalajara. Rather empty around it.

2008-04-02T20:57:00.001-07:00

The Guadalajara cathedral. Fruit sellers set up in the street in front. I see Omar and Isidorio there bargaining for us.

2008-03-25T14:45:00.001-07:00

The maguey fields. The same plant makes pulque and aloe vera.
We were on our way to Guadalajara an hour away.

2008-03-25T14:43:00.001-07:00

The bottling room. Obviously it was a small Tequila distillery.

2008-03-25T14:35:00.001-07:00

2008-03-25T14:34:00.001-07:00

Omar points to the hearts of maguey plants piled up in an oven for cooking.

2008-03-25T14:12:00.000-07:00

In Tequila, we found a distillery

2008-03-23T17:10:00.000-07:00

I READ RECENTLY in an article by Adam Gopnik (The New Yorker, 3/17/08) that it has been observed that every great adult skill requires sustaining some moment of childhood. All scientists are eternally four years old, wide-eyed and self-centered. Writers, he said, are "forever eight years old, over-aware and indignant." Magicians (the subject of his article), and, I would argue, photographers are eternally twelve years old, having discovered how to do their first sleight of hand trick or make a magic box trick work -- or having used their first camera, that ultimate, magnificent gadget.

Twelve it was for me. Unlike my previous fascinations like building forts in the woods or a chemistry set, the camera was a world of possibility contained in a small gadget. which I could learn to use better and better. And around it hovered the occult magic of the darkroom. At thirteen I entered high school, and used my paper route earnings to buy a small Speed Graphic camera, the Brownie no longer being complicated enough.

2008-03-23T16:50:00.000-07:00

We noticed that the boys privately considered the young farmer as not quite bright or respectable, our first glimpse of class distinctions that they would later in the trip be victims of themselves. They may have been runaways, but they were highschool students too. The young farmer was not.

2008-03-23T16:48:00.000-07:00

On the way in, however, we got interested in a farmer plowing a new field with oxen and a wooden plow. The boys helped us get permission.

2008-03-23T16:46:00.001-07:00

In the distance is the town of Tequila, under Mount Tequila. We wanted to stop in.

2008-03-23T16:39:00.000-07:00

Frazer, Fred and the boys at La Valle de la Magdalena.

2008-03-18T23:02:00.000-07:00

In thinking about the use of captions I realize that I had forgotten an early influence on my photography, which affected me before I left for Mexico in 1953 -- Wright Morris' book The Inhabitants (1946). Morris was a novelist first, a photographer second, but a good one. On a fellowship he traveled in 1940 the depression-broken Midwest, shooting abandoned homes and farmsteads, and in his book each photograph was accompanied by a full page of imagined conversation or interior monologue by the departed inhabitants.

The photographs were good. But the combination of words and picture was especially evocative. The words made me dwell on the photograph and see it better. It was an approach Morris hoped to carry on, but after a couple of such "photo-texts" (his name for them) his publisher told him there was no market for them, so he just wrote novels, for which he won awards and became famous.

Szarkowski at MOMA championed Morris' photography and gave him an exhibition there, and there was a retrospective of his photography at SF MOMA in 1996, I believe. I received one of his original 8 by 10 prints from the anthropologist Dorothy Lee, who knew him, in the early sixties but never again saw The Inhabitants until my daughter gave me a copy 2004. Clearly this, along with The Family of Man, were major influences on my views of photographic art. Words were always involved.

2008-03-16T23:22:00.000-07:00

On the question of captions: I say, if a viewer's appreciation of a photograph, and of the artist's intention, is enhanced by a caption, then it is a legitimate addition to the photograph. As an artist, I love the idea of presenting a photograph with "Untitled" as its caption, I have to be careful about its use. It is in a way a slap in the face. "Oh, you looked down here for an interpretation? Well, you'll just have to do the work yourself!" At times that is a very gentle slap and the viewer reacts well, and does see what the artist wants him to see, or ends up in the state of befuddlement the artist wants him to be in. But finally, the viewer has to decide whether this is a mind he wants to fathom.

Because what is this artistic transaction? The artist went to a lot of trouble for somebody. The viewer is investing his valuable time. (You don't think your time is valuable? Just get old!) Something has to be trans-acted. From one to another. What makes it worthwhile?

The artist of "The Surrender of Breda" knew that his client was the king, and the audience beyond him was the people who would feel inspired by the triumph and the magnanimity of the victor. It was a complex message to be transmitted: shared glory in victory, and a lesson in humanity, kindness toward the vanquished. And Velasquez created a lovely moment even while overwhelming the viewer with grand scope. Here you have the judgment of a patron that the artist had an intellect that could grasp his purpose, even magnify it. But today most art is created without patrons, and the viewer is alone deciding whether the mind he is entertaining for the moment is worthy. Should he invest time in this artist's imagination?

If words can help the artist make his case, I say use them. If he feels that his image speaks for itself, fine; call it Untitled or give no caption. But if he worries that what he sees in the subject will be missed by most viewers, let a few words help.

2008-03-16T12:20:00.000-07:00

The notes on the negative envelope say they were Omar and Isidorio. They had run away from a summer of working in the fields up north to hitch rides and see their country.

I could not remember how we got together with them when I made the book "Mexico 1953: The Roadtrip" back in 2005, but when I finally found Fred Chez, my traveling companion, after 52 years of not being in touch, he said "Don't you remember? Mr. Villa Lobos met them in a park as we were walking with him in Tepic, and when he found out what they were doing, asked us to give them a ride. You didn't want to, because of all the camera equipment and there being no back seat in the car, just a metal trunk. Mr. Villa Lobos said, 'Look, I trusted you, didn't I? Won't you trust these boys?'" No wonder I forgot. He put us to shame. The two turned out to be good company, funny and helpful, for the next couple of weeks.

2008-03-16T12:10:00.000-07:00

Well, I guess I can continue showing the raw shots from the road trip in 1953 while also discussing the issues that intrigue me about art photography.

The above is where we first encountered Mexico's vulcanism on the way down the west coast. Not far south of Tepic is the Ceboruco lava field, remnant of an extinct volcano. Here is the first place my negatives show the presence of two high school boys who traveled with us for a while. I asked them to be in the picture with Fred, because the photo without them had no scale: it was hard to see how big the boulders were.

2008-03-15T12:21:00.000-07:00

Since I now have a website for my photography, I am going to use this space in a different way. The Road Trip book is available for download on Lulu.com/rogerhagan and does not need to be continued here.

The website is www.rogerhagan.com

I have been thinking a lot about photography as art, and I plan to give a "conferencia" on it in Guadalajara this May, in connection with my exhibit there of about 60 prints from "Mexico 1953." So I am putting my thoughts here for development and critique.

One thing I have pondered is whether to put captions beside the pictures: should there be none, or a simple name of location, or a more extensive caption? Because I make a lot of the concept of "noticing" in discussing photography, I incline at times to give a caption which leads the viewer to what I think makes the picture work. But this is doing the noticing for the viewer. Sometimes the simple caption "untitled" is just as effective in getting a viewer to think, or rather, to observe.

Not that all pictures need to be thought about. Some are simply pretty or informational or have a "wow" factor, like great sports photography which highlights the critical moment of an action. But some of mine work, for me, because of things the viewer might not notice. I suppose it could be argued that any photograph that needs a caption is not good enough to be art. I must review that opinion at length.

2007-05-15T18:54:00.000-07:00

The apartment was simply a large room with dividers.

2007-05-15T18:52:00.000-07:00

His garden courtyard, where he washed.

2007-05-15T18:47:00.000-07:00

His name was Sr. Villa-Lobos. He said he was not related to the composer of that name. I spoke with him in my labored Spanish, and in his story I heard him say he had studied in the United States. Finally I realized that he must speak English. He laughed and said of course, but the practice was good for my Spanish.

2007-05-15T18:46:00.000-07:00

A music teacher we met on the street invited us to lunch with him at a neighborhood boarding house where he took his meals

2007-05-15T18:42:00.000-07:00

Gifts and supplications inside the Church of the Grass Cross.

2007-05-15T18:40:00.000-07:00

In Tepic, the Church of the Grass Cross, the first of Father Junipero Serra's mission churches that stretched up through Mexico and California to Sonoma.

2007-05-15T18:32:00.000-07:00

The capital building of Nayarit, in Tepic

2007-05-15T18:20:00.000-07:00

Moving on.
The coast range north of Tepic in Nayarit state, with low clouds. We were in the valley of the Rio Santiago with its distant aquaduct (in the far distance here) moving south between Tuxpan and Tepic.

2006-10-09T14:29:00.000-07:00

TIME OUT. I've been busy with other photo books --six since the Mexico books, and another in the works. I haven't had time to continue this series.

PHOTO BOOKS -- All the covers of the books I have done, and useful previews of the contents, are at www.lulu.com/rogerhagan

My other photo blogs here remain: www.m53.blogspot.com for the big photo book on Mexico in 1953, and www.frontmoss.blogspot.com which was my first experiment making a photo blog on this service.

2006-04-08T20:43:00.000-07:00

Next day, a last walk around old Mazatlan.

The cathedral, which I later realized was a strange, non-traditional design; in front of it, a park with a gazebo for concerts, 19th century style.

2006-04-08T20:20:00.000-07:00

One home had a radio which played music loud so all the neighbors could enjoy it. Everyone's door was open. There were no windows.

In his hut, the oysterman shucked the oysters into glass tumblers, poured in a bit of chili and lime juice, and handed them to each of us along with a spoon. I had never eaten raw oysters, and then and there I developed a lifelong taste for them. But within a week, I was very ill with dysentery. Fred's took longer, but it finally caught up with him.

That evening, however, was a lovely experience. Pepsi was offered. Children came to look at us. We were feeling very good as we walked back to camp along the dark beach with the radio music gradually fading into the sound of the small surf.

Almost certainly the estuary was polluted. With a small opening to the sea, it would not often be flushed out.

2006-04-08T20:11:00.000-07:00

He invited us to his home to have some of the oysters.

We went, in the gathering dark.

His home was a hut on the beach nearer to town than our camp. It was surrounded by eight or nine similar huts, each with a lone lightbulb in it, with power stolen from a pole a hundred yards inland.

2006-04-08T19:41:00.000-07:00

We walked back along the shore, and I found this odd rock profile where we came to the Sea of Cortes.

The oysterman was generous and friendly, but he got me in trouble.

2006-04-05T23:09:00.000-07:00

At the end of the afternoon, with oysters in the sacks, we walked back out to the Sea of Cortes as the tide dropped.

2006-04-05T22:59:00.000-07:00

To the oyster beds
Do I appear hesitant? I should have been.

2006-04-05T22:54:00.000-07:00

Our view of the estuary, a huge shallow lagoon up the coast from Mazatlan.

2006-04-05T22:48:00.000-07:00

We stopped on a small rise from which we could see the huge estuary. My traveling companion Fred Chez is nearest the camera. The taller oysterman was discussing something with his shorter friend. He was the one who knew where the good oyster beds were.

2006-04-05T22:43:00.000-07:00

While camped on the beach, we spoke with two men walking by
carrying empty net sacks. They were on their way to the northern estuary
to gather oysters, and invited us to walk with them.
They led us up this track, northward away from Mazatlan.

2006-04-01T18:57:00.000-08:00

Just north of the town was this huge beach. There was nothing on it. We camped there.

2006-04-01T18:53:00.000-08:00

Mazatlan was a small town. The cathedral is at right.

2006-03-26T18:35:00.000-08:00

The Mazatlan Malecon from radio tower hill

2006-03-26T18:22:00.000-08:00

Fred chatting with youngsters on the malecon.
Fred was easy with children. He was on his way to a graduate degree in education.
Beyond is the radio tower hill, from which we later took photos of the city.

2006-03-26T18:19:00.000-08:00

The Malecon (waterside walk) in Mazatlan

The only high-rise was unfinished.

2006-03-26T18:12:00.000-08:00

Camp on the beach at Mazatlan. Keys in the trunk. Radio tower hill in the
background. Cathedral towers near the center. This great beach had nothing on it.
The "Gerry Cans," from army surplus, were to carry drinking water
that we begged from Pepsi bottling plants along the way, a reliable source
of distilled water. We were not free from dysentery, but it came from another
source we soon found here in Mazatlan.

2006-03-21T16:36:00.000-08:00

A toddler in the village

2006-03-21T16:27:00.000-08:00

We are heading south toward Culiacan. The highway is still dirt.

We go by a village of pilapas.

2006-03-21T16:25:00.000-08:00

Sugar cane fields plowed under outside of Los Mochis.

2006-03-21T16:20:00.000-08:00

Dr. Chapman has dropped us off to get on our way, and heads out for more fishing in the Sea of Cortes.

2006-03-21T16:18:00.000-08:00

Dr. Avendaro clears hooks. He was an associate in Dr. Chapman's clinic.

2006-03-21T16:15:00.000-08:00

Topolobampo seen from Dr. Chapman's boat

2006-03-16T19:33:00.000-08:00

The cannery in Topolobampo, owned by former President Miguel Aleman.
Nothing else was happening here, but the one business was owned
by the last President. The railroad ended here so the shrimp
could easily be shipped north.

2006-03-12T10:44:00.000-08:00

Dr. Chapman on his boat in Topolobampo.
He had lived here since the twenties. I told him I had seen red-headed Mexicans in the towns between Guaymas and Los Mochis. He said that they were the descendents of an Irish priest who came to Mexico to preach in the mountains to the east that separate the state of Chihuahua from Sonora and Sinaloa. The priest’s offspring were a western diaspora.

2006-03-12T09:40:00.000-08:00

I have seen upscale bars named Topolobampo in America.
Perhaps it is a stylish place now. It was a tiny poor village of fisher people then.

2006-03-12T09:23:00.000-08:00

Next morning, Dr. Chapman invited us fishing on his boat, which he kept in the
nearby fishing village of Topolobampo. Being well rested,
we could leave bright and early.

2006-03-09T19:20:00.000-08:00

Roger with Mr. Hympleton, United Sugar Factory, Los Mochis. Like some other
Americans whose companies were nationalized, his family stayed to run the mill for the new owners. He told us of a Dr. Chapman who came down with the Southern Pacific Railroad to open a clinic and had also stayed on after Mexico nationalized the railroad. Perhaps he introduced us. Dr. Chapman said we could spend the night in his clinic, since it was not busy then. We did. We spent the night on hospital beds. Nice Mexican nurses kept sticking their heads in to ask if we needed anything. The doctor had probably told them to take care of the boys. We were too naive to know what they meant. We slept a quiet night.

2006-03-09T19:09:00.000-08:00

The sugar mill at Los Mochis, said to be the biggest on that coast. And the 1948 Frazer. Not the brightest choice. No one in Mexico had parts for it when it broke down. But the Mexican mechanics were as ingenious as Cuban mechanics fifty years later. They kept it running. I recall the car as a Frazer. Fred recalls it as a Kaiser. It was his car, but I still say Frazer. A slab-sided Frazer, famous in its day.

2006-03-09T19:00:00.000-08:00

A drink stand in Los Mochis, a sugar mill town developed by an American from Virginia named Johnston, who built a mill here in the 1920s. The mill had been nationalized after the Mexican revolution, like the railroad that served it. The line ran through the Copper Canyon to El Paso.

2006-03-09T18:51:00.000-08:00

We camped off the highway in cots by our car, usually in the dark. In the morning we sometimes found ourselves near people and their animals or homes. (There are homes to the left and right above.) Most steered clear of us; a few came by to sell us goats’ milk for our coffee and cereal. I developed a taste for goats’ milk, rich and salty, probably from the salt brush the goats ate.

2006-03-05T14:07:00.000-08:00

The ferry at Rio del Fuerte could take just two vehicles at a time,
and followed a cable across the river.

2006-03-05T14:02:00.000-08:00

The west coast highway: unpaved.
We felt anxious as darkness fell, since we knew there were rivers to cross
with no bridges yet completed. These western states of Mexico north of Nayarit were mostly undeveloped and unvisited, and the west coast highway was planned to change that.

2006-03-05T13:53:00.000-08:00

A village of shacks on the highway to Los Mochis from Guaymas.
Clouds hang over the Sierra Madre Occidental

2006-02-26T11:33:00.000-08:00

On the road in Sonora, on the west coastal plain. It was raining.
As a photographer in the mid-20th century I would never have thought of
printing a picture like this, even though I shot it, presumably
with some sense of meaning. Now it appeals to me.

(To be continued)

2006-02-26T11:31:00.000-08:00

Henaldo, in Guaymas.
I had some Spanish and would chat with people. I do not recall if Fred also spoke the language, but his gregarious nature did attract people. The west coast highway was just being constructed, so people along here had not been overrun with tourists, and were curious and friendly

2006-02-26T11:27:00.000-08:00

Guaymas

The main street had not been paved yet.

2006-02-26T11:20:00.000-08:00

Fred at Guaymas with (!) Mel and Pat from UCLA.
So we didn’t own the highway.
We wondered if they had expected surf.

2006-02-26T11:12:00.000-08:00

First seashore: Bacochibampo Bay on the Sea of Cortes

Like a moonscape with water

2006-02-23T22:19:00.000-08:00

Finally we were in Mexico.
The highway from Hermosillo to the coast at Guaymas.
We had been warned about solitary cows by the road.
Hit one anywhere in Mexico and we might spend a week in jail and pay a big settlement.
We were also warned not to drink milk or water or order soup. We had many warnings.

(To be continued)

2006-02-23T21:53:00.000-08:00

The Arizona night was hot in July.

Fred Chez at work.

2006-02-23T21:51:00.000-08:00

Processing my film in the Howdy Manor Motel

2006-02-23T21:47:00.000-08:00

Processing chemicals in the motel in Phoenix

2006-02-23T21:42:00.000-08:00

On the road again, cooling off in the
Arizona Canal or one of its branches near Phoenix. It brings
Colorado River water to the dry valleys. I saw these canals again
in 2004, in Scottsdale, surrounded by homes and golf courses.

2006-02-22T22:18:00.000-08:00

Not everyone's idyll. Jack showed us "the suicide shack" as we hiked back. I think an old ranch hand he knew had ended his days here alone.

(To be continued)

2006-02-22T21:57:00.000-08:00

But beyond the canyon the river valley opened up. I wonder if it is a development now.

2006-02-22T21:45:00.000-08:00

It was an idlyll. If Jack Switzer is still alive, I hope this place is still his secret.

I hope there is no highway coming through. No Marriotts overlooking it.

2006-02-22T21:34:00.000-08:00

Jack's swimming hole. Fred's buns.

2006-02-22T21:28:00.000-08:00

Then suddenly there were these lovely pools in this notch canyon.

2006-02-22T21:21:00.000-08:00

The canyon narrowed. There was little water.

(For some reason I shot this one sequence in color.

In the book I print these as black and white.)

2006-02-21T12:07:00.000-08:00

Jack’s secret canyon on the Hassayampa River

(to be continued)

2006-02-21T12:04:00.000-08:00

Jack Switzer trusted the water, although the green algae
at its borders suggested fertilizer runoff from upstream.

2006-02-20T14:33:00.000-08:00

The next day Jack took us hiking to a swimming hole in a canyon where the
Hassayampa River is forced to the surface by a constriction of the bedrock.
It was how he dealt with the July heat.

(To be continued)

2006-02-20T14:25:00.000-08:00

We processed our film as we went along. The result was a lot of flaws, folds, and fogging.
But we were afraid the heat we were moving though would wreck the film
we had exposed if we didn’t. There was no way to keep it cool in the car.
These are uncorrected proofs in most cases.

2006-02-20T14:20:00.000-08:00

Blue on his way to dinner

2006-02-19T21:02:00.000-08:00

They insisted that I get on Blue. I did it, with a borrowed hat, but the only thing I knew about horses was that they could sense when the guy on their back was ignorant about horses. They could get away with galloping hard as soon as they were turned back toward the stable. I’d had that experience before.

You could see Blue thinking.

(To be continued)

2006-02-19T17:35:00.000-08:00

An experiment: a book in form of a blog
(Remember, this reads up from the bottom, except for these two pictures.)

(All photos in this series are proof scans of somewhat damaged negatives.)

My friend Fred Chez came from southern Oregon and played
football, although he never became an All-American like his brother. We both made photographs, and wanted to make some in Mexico. He had a car.

Before crossing the border at Nogales, Fred wanted to visit his friend Jack Switzer, at Jack’s ranch on the Hassayampa River near Wickenburg, Arizona. Switzer lived alone there in the heat. So we went that way.

Fred rides "Blue," the gentlest horse on the Switzer ranch. At one point, Jack grabbed another horse’s erect penis and said "Forget it, Joker. You’re a gelding, not a stud." So I learned what a gelding was.

(To be continued)