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| Camilo Jose Vergara. Photo by John D. and Catherine T. - MacArthur Foundation. CC Licence. |
Any readers of The Guardians culture section may have come
across a series of photo galleries depicting the work of Camilo José Vergara.
Chilean Vergara was born in 1944 studied for a BA in
Sociology from the University of Notre Dame and MA is Sociology from Columbia
University where he also completed the course work for a PH.D.
Vergara moved to new where he began working as a humanist
street photographer in the early 1970’s.
His work was greatly influenced by his graduate work which highlighted
an interest in the complexities of environmental influences on social
behaviours.
The development of Kodachrome 64 film would also have a
profound effect on his body of work and although he still recorded humanist
behaviours he made a switch to documenting changes in urban landscapes. Vergara would return to the same locations
over and over again to depict the de-urbanization and reclamation by
nature. Over a decade’s worth of his
photographs led to the publication of his first book The New American Ghetto in 1995 for which he won the Robert E. Park
Award of the American Sociological Association in 1997.
Vergara’s photographs often depict a social decline and a
return to nature that is fascinating, sad and sometimes uplifting but they also
show a way of life on the margins of society.
His street photography has an almost cinematic quality to it
that is reminiscent of scenes from 1970’s or 80’s movies such as Alan Parker’s
Fame, Taxi Driver or Saturday Night Fever.
It’s certainly work looking at.
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