http://www.npr.org/blogs/pictureshow/2012/07/24/156965519/the-colorfu...

The Colorful Days Of Life On The Border<http://www.npr.org/blogs/pictureshow/2012/07/24/156965519/the-colorfu...>

Categories: Daily Picture Show<http://www.npr.org/templates/archives/archive.php?thingId=125399052>

01:34 pm

July 24, 2012

   - Twitter (15)
   - Facebook (100)
   - E-mail<http://www.npr.org/templates/email/emailAFriend.php?storyId=156965519>
   - Share
   - Print
   - Comments (3)<http://www.npr.org/blogs/pictureshow/2012/07/24/156965519/the-colorfu...>
   - Recommend (14)

by CLAIRE O'NEILL

*Editor's note: This is another *one of those stories that came to me
fortuitously by email<http://www.npr.org/blogs/pictureshow/2012/03/26/149391425/the-democra...>
*. Bruce Berman teaches photography in Las Cruces, N.M., and, like many
photography instructors, he has a huge archive of his own. This is just a
small selection of his color photographs documenting life in the border
town of El Paso, Texas.*

   - [image: Sisters at the Border, 2007. Nuns meet at the border of
   Anapra, N.M. (left), and Barrio Anapra, Juarez. The nuns in Mexico cannot
   cross for various reasons — except on the day of a Mass for immigrants,
   held every November in the U.S.]

   <http://www.npr.org/blogs/pictureshow/2012/07/24/156965519/the-colorfu...><http://www.npr.org/blogs/pictureshow/2012/07/24/156965519/the-colorfu...>
   Bruce Berman
   - [image: Hearts and Flowers, 1992. Deep in the heart of Juarez. Summer.
   It's hot and its alive in Juarez. In those days. Now, a city that has just
   lived through a war. What remains is yet to be determined.]

   <http://www.npr.org/blogs/pictureshow/2012/07/24/156965519/the-colorfu...><http://www.npr.org/blogs/pictureshow/2012/07/24/156965519/the-colorfu...>
   Bruce Berman
   - [image: Dignified Man, 2006. This "viejo" (old one) walks on this
   street every evening. 6th and El Paso St. This is the first street in the
   U.S. after crossing from Juarez into downtown El Paso. In essence, this is
   the first block of America (or the last, depending on which direction
   you're going).]

   <http://www.npr.org/blogs/pictureshow/2012/07/24/156965519/the-colorfu...><http://www.npr.org/blogs/pictureshow/2012/07/24/156965519/the-colorfu...>
   Bruce Berman
   - [image: Candyman in El Panteon. The Panteon of Juarez (the municipal
   cemetery) on the Day of the Dead, 1994. The celebration is still honored,
   but there have been so many funerals in Juarez during the cartel war years
   that people are closer to death than is comfortable.]

   <http://www.npr.org/blogs/pictureshow/2012/07/24/156965519/the-colorfu...><http://www.npr.org/blogs/pictureshow/2012/07/24/156965519/the-colorfu...>
   Bruce Berman
   - [image: Segundo Barrio, El Paso, Texas, 2005. Many stores have come
   and gone in this building through the years. The residents of the Segundo
   Barrio community have maintained it on their own initiative, for decades,
   as far back as anyone can remember.]

   <http://www.npr.org/blogs/pictureshow/2012/07/24/156965519/the-colorfu...><http://www.npr.org/blogs/pictureshow/2012/07/24/156965519/the-colorfu...>
   Bruce Berman
   - [image: Martin at his home in Lomas de Poleo (northwest Juarez).
   Martin is one of the last residents of a little agriculture community,
   which has gone from 200 families to 12.]

   <http://www.npr.org/blogs/pictureshow/2012/07/24/156965519/the-colorfu...><http://www.npr.org/blogs/pictureshow/2012/07/24/156965519/the-colorfu...>
   Bruce Berman
   - [image: River Jump in the River with Two Names, 1989. Kids cool off in
   the river with two names — Rio Grande on the U.S. side, and Rio Bravo in
   Mexico.]

   <http://www.npr.org/blogs/pictureshow/2012/07/24/156965519/the-colorfu...><http://www.npr.org/blogs/pictureshow/2012/07/24/156965519/the-colorfu...>
   Bruce Berman
   - [image: Santa Claus and his reindeer in the Plaza de Juarez, Christmas
   Eve, 2003]

   <http://www.npr.org/blogs/pictureshow/2012/07/24/156965519/the-colorfu...><http://www.npr.org/blogs/pictureshow/2012/07/24/156965519/the-colorfu...>
   Bruce Berman
   - [image: Las Sierras de Juarez, 2006. A mother and daughter in the
   Plaza de Juarez in front of a photographer's backdrop.]

   <http://www.npr.org/blogs/pictureshow/2012/07/24/156965519/the-colorfu...><http://www.npr.org/blogs/pictureshow/2012/07/24/156965519/the-colorfu...>
   Bruce Berman
   - [image: A man and his family in northeast Juarez, 2008]

   <http://www.npr.org/blogs/pictureshow/2012/07/24/156965519/the-colorfu...><http://www.npr.org/blogs/pictureshow/2012/07/24/156965519/the-colorfu...>
   Bruce Berman
   - [image: The Virgin's Car Wash, 2005. The Virgin de Guadalupe on an
   unfinished car wash in El Paso.]

   <http://www.npr.org/blogs/pictureshow/2012/07/24/156965519/the-colorfu...><http://www.npr.org/blogs/pictureshow/2012/07/24/156965519/the-colorfu...>
   Bruce Berman
   - [image: Woman in an assembly plant in Juarez (known as a maquila),
   1999.]

   <http://www.npr.org/blogs/pictureshow/2012/07/24/156965519/the-colorfu...><http://www.npr.org/blogs/pictureshow/2012/07/24/156965519/the-colorfu...>
   Bruce Berman
   - [image: Wary girl in a GMC truck, downtown El Paso, 1980]

   <http://www.npr.org/blogs/pictureshow/2012/07/24/156965519/the-colorfu...><http://www.npr.org/blogs/pictureshow/2012/07/24/156965519/the-colorfu...>
   Bruce Berman
   - [image: Wedding Day in El Segundo Barrio, 1984. This is the oldest
   neighborhood of El Paso, sitting right on the border with Mexico,
   traditionally a first step for immigrants to the U.S. In effect, it has
   acted for Mexican residents as New York City's Lower East Side did for
   generations of migrants who had landed at Ellis Island.]

   <http://www.npr.org/blogs/pictureshow/2012/07/24/156965519/the-colorfu...><http://www.npr.org/blogs/pictureshow/2012/07/24/156965519/the-colorfu...>
   Bruce Berman

<http://www.npr.org/blogs/pictureshow/2012/07/24/156965519/the-colorfu...><http://www.npr.org/blogs/pictureshow/2012/07/24/156965519/the-colorfu...>

1 OF 14
View slideshow<http://www.npr.org/blogs/pictureshow/2012/07/24/156965519/the-colorfu...>
i<http://www.npr.org/blogs/pictureshow/2012/07/24/156965519/the-colorfu...>

Bruce Berman says he first went to El Paso "by accident" — when he
spontaneously accepted a teaching position without giving it much thought.
What he had planned to be a one-year stint turned into a 37-year love
affair with the city and its sister city across the border, Juarez.

For nearly two decades starting in 1980, he photographed what he calls "The
Border Project" — a vibrant document of life around the city. Over time, he
started consistently covering the region for publications like *Time* and *The
New York Times*.

But in 2006, he says, life in El Paso fundamentally changed — and so did
his work. The effects of the Mexican drug war had become widespread and
irreparable. "It came to Mexico and to the border in a flash, like a sucker
punch's body blow," he writes.

"The [war] changed everything. What had been a society (Juarez) of
aspiration and hope ... turned to something terrifying, sad and very very
real."

Since then, Berman, who now teaches photojournalism at New Mexico State
University, has been shooting in black and white — and the color photos
have come to symbolize something else: "I realized that the previous work
was, in the end, my mythic version of the border," he says.

*You can learn more about the border and Berman's *work on his blog<http://border-blog.com/>
.