Bruce Berman has been a professional photographer for over five decades. He has always worked in what some have called, “The Concerned Photographer,” style of photography. His initial documentary projects were in Chicago where he photographed Appalachian migrants to the big city, Black Panthers during the tumultuous 1960’s and the gritty street life of Chicago in its Rust Belt years.
His main work, however, has concentrated on the United States/Mexico border, particularly the narrow stretch of land that encompasses El Paso, Texas and Juarez, Mexico.
After coming back from one of his earliest forays on Alameda Street on El Paso’ south side, in 1980, Berman wrote in his journal, “…I have seen a new world. It is both physical fact and mythical idea. It is a place with a line drawn through it and on each side of that line there are metaphoric mirrors that are reflecting back at each other, perhaps distorting each other, perhaps magnifying each other. It is the US/Mexican border. I will make my stand here. I will try to ‘give face,’ to this place so others can know it, perhaps, even, so those who live in it will know it more deeply.” The aggregate result of that effort resides in two main bodies of work: The Border Project: 1985-2007, and Juárez: Cartel War Years (2007-2012) .
Berman lives and works deep in the borderlands of El Paso and Juárez, three blocks from the international bridge that connects Juarez and El Paso, surrounded by and isolated in the the vast lands of West Texas and northern Chihuahua. He refers to this as his “Beat in the City State of No Man’s Land.”
He continues to cover his “beat” for major publications throughout the world.
Additionally, Berman has worked as a Corporate/Industrial/Advertising photographer throughout his career, specializing in Corporate, Healthcare, and Industrial reportage for annual reports, publications and identity campaigns.
When asked if he sees a disparity between his corporate and photojournalistic pursuits, he replies, “It’s all story-telling. Some have more personal meaning, to me, than others. They’re all interesting.” Lastly and with great pleasure, since 2008, Berman has added “teacher” to his name. He is now a tenured Associate Professor of photojournalism at New Mexico State University (NMSU), 40 miles north of the El Paso/ Juárez ports of entry, in Las Cruces, NM. His teaching concentration is on Documentary Photojournalism and multimedia reporting.
In his documentary classes he states, “I want you to use documentary photography as an instrument of education -not self-expression so that the work matters in this world.”
He tries to live what he teaches.
Essay by Nathan Zarate
FOR MORE WORK BY BRUCE BERMAN SEE:
www.russell-lee-road.com [Under reconstruction]
Publications and Clients:
The New York Times – Getty – Time – Newsweek – USA Today – The Christian Science Monitor – Fortune – Business Week – Sports Illustrated – Texas Monthly – Vanity Fair – Dwell – The Wine Spectator – Bloomberg – The Texas Humanist – Golf Journal- American Journalism Review – Jungle Law – The Chicago Tribune- Boston Globe – Dallas Observer- Dallas Morning News – Houston Chronicle- Corriere della Sera – Harcourt Brace- Houghton Mifflin – Knopf – Mac Milan Publishing – Random House – Scholastic – The Texas Observer – – Scholastic Magazine – Smithsonian Institution – Chronicle of Higher Education – Sierra Club Magazine – Texas Tribune – The Monitor on Psychology (APA) – AT&T – Tenet Healthcare Corporation – SW Advertising – Honeywell – Siemens -International Youth Foundation