tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post1888232943056706005..comments2024-01-28T03:56:39.351-08:00Comments on TOM CLARK: John Vachon: Peligro (Puerto Rico, February 1973)Unknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger7125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post-10081791630808910422013-02-21T02:31:59.040-08:002013-02-21T02:31:59.040-08:00Peligro yes but despite the dangers, some natives ...<i>Peligro</i> yes but despite the dangers, some natives will always be more than willing to tap into and exploit a more musical, <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3MLpyzYU91I" rel="nofollow">lucrative vein</a>.vazambam (Vassilis Zambaras)https://www.blogger.com/profile/14515165428574974933noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post-67841703353750624532013-02-20T09:47:30.821-08:002013-02-20T09:47:30.821-08:00A history of the oppression and exploitation broug...A history of the oppression and exploitation brought to the New World by Europeans would have no better paradigm than the story of this island, from the time Columbus found it and called it "a rich port" and nearly four centuries of slavery began, down through its acquisition by the US as a vast sugarcane plantation and, following the Great Depression, the implementation of a late New Deal plan called Operation Bootstrap, which created the new industries -- petrochemicals, then later pharmaceuticals, and always of course tourism -- with the attendant developments of a new middle class, awful environmental pollution, and the continuing impoverishment of the large majority of the island's people.<br /><br />John Vachon was a great photographer, standing out from many other fine photographers by virtue of his unique understanding of the complex interrelations between people and the places in which they live and work.<br /><br />Visiting at a critical point of transition from the old agricultural economy to the new industrial/tourist economy, he saw right through those "thin and hollow" high-rises, the latest stage sets of a grand historical deception in many acts.TChttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05915822857461178942noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post-23870969042201496022013-02-20T09:24:36.470-08:002013-02-20T09:24:36.470-08:00Poverty and all those lures for tourists - always ...Poverty and all those lures for tourists - always a troubling mixture. Vachon misses nothing here.Mose23https://www.blogger.com/profile/01100756913131511440noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post-22089869371674295152013-02-20T08:48:04.738-08:002013-02-20T08:48:04.738-08:00Thanks, Tom, for researching and putting up this l...Thanks, Tom, for researching and putting up this later Vachon. He still had the eye, right up to the last.<br /><br />One of my fondest memories is of La Parguera, a tiny, remote fishing village (back then, anyway, mid Sixties) on the south coast. There was a motel with a dining room and bar built out over the water, where you could sit at night and eat red snapper and watch the shimmering, phosphorescent sea. ¡Bello y asombroso! Otro Borinquen.Hazenhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13417573435195561519noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post-58725781291426113762013-02-20T08:46:51.299-08:002013-02-20T08:46:51.299-08:00Tom,
Yes, "that imaginary place called Puert...Tom,<br /><br />Yes, "that imaginary place called Puerto Rico" -- comes alive in JV's beautiful Kodachrome glimpses. . .<br /><br /><br />2.20 <br /><br />light coming into sky above still black<br />plane of ridge, red-tailed hawk calling<br />in foreground, sound of wave in channel<br /><br /> yellowish tinged with black,<br /> orange with blue hand<br /><br /> so that, thus brought forth<br /> in this, then must be<br /><br />grey of rain cloud against top of ridge,<br />drops splashing into grey green channel<br />STEPHEN RATCLIFFEhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12339481653546188412noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post-83960903007518998772013-02-20T08:15:30.302-08:002013-02-20T08:15:30.302-08:00My eyes at first refused to make sense of those ne...My eyes at first refused to make sense of those new apartment buildings. They seem so thin and hollow from a distance.Norahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14439557611640319928noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post-79536557618062767802013-02-20T07:30:19.190-08:002013-02-20T07:30:19.190-08:00mucho gracious for this. it tricked and triggered ...mucho gracious for this. it tricked and triggered a memory when my father would go down to puerto rico in the winter to work on his corn. i recall he couldn't find any food he liked. now isn't that trouble in paradise?Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06096701167441653059noreply@blogger.com