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Rosalind Solomon (redux)

I’ve never seen a book like Rosalind Solomon’s “Chapalingas“. I’m spending more “getting acquainted” time with it than books I’ve picked-up from Winogrand, Parr, Bresson or Arbus.

She’s had shows in the U.S., but she’s had more success abroad. Chapalingas was published by Steidl, in Germany.

I keep bringing her up because my sense is that while she’s clearly in the Arbus strain of street photographers, her work has a broader, more universal appeal. She’s both more candid and more classical that Arbus, though I hesitate to explain why right now. (She studied, like Arbus, with Lisette Model.) I’ve learned a lot in the past few weeks from looking and re-looking at Chapalingas. It’s a four-hundred page book, and you can find it used online for under forty bucks.

Here are a few selections (that are probably on her site as well) that I keep thinking about. All are taken from Chapalingas, copyright Rosalind Solomon 2003. If I remember correctly, these six images are from New Orleans, Tennessee, Tennessee, Hong Kong, Peru & Jordan (I think).