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Vintage Photos El
Paso’s Beautiful People: 1921-1946
Photographer’s Art Saved from the Dustbin of HistoryThe
Casasola Collection of UT El
Paso
puts the “Special” in Special Collections |
Gisela
Gonzalez Barney
Courtesy UT El Paso, Casasola Collection |
Famous
Southern Cousins
If the name sounds familiar, it’s because Augustin Victor Casasola was to
the Mexican Revolution(s) what Matthew Brady was to the U.S. Civil War. Casasola
was a newspaper reporter before he ‘developed’ an interest in photography. He
can easily claim the title of Mexico’s first photojournalist.
With his
brother Miguel, the two set up Mexico’s first-of-its-kind photo agency, where
they could dispatch photographers across the country to record whichever revolution,
current event or disaster was currently in progress.
Editor’s
Note:
In rare motion-picture footage of a triumphant Pancho Villa riding into
Mexico City, Augustin Casasola can be seen setting up his tripod and view camera
and then shouldering both for a sprint down the street, barely avoiding being
trampled by Villa’s horse. He photographed both Villa (who never met a camera
he didn’t like) and the camera-shy Emiliano Zapata. The famous shot of the two
men laughing together in the presidental palace was a Casasola print). Even after
Villa and Zapata were assassinated (separately and years apart) it was Casasola
or staffers who photographed the bullet-riddled corpses. To this day, heirs of
the Casasola Brothers operate a business in downtown Mexico City, making prints
from original glass-plate negatives.
After things settled down, and before the brothers started socializing with fellow
photographer, Tina Modotti, muralist Diego Rivera, self-portraitist Frieda Kahlo,
and other Mexico City artists, the Brothers Casasola helped their cousin Alfonso
establish a photography business on “the other side” in El
Paso, Texas in 1921. It is the quiet studio work of their cousin, Alfonso
Casasola, that is featured here. |
 |
| The
Photographer Photographed
Alfonso
Casasola
Courtesy UT El Paso, Casasola Collection |
Alfonso
Casasola and his Studio
Alfonso Casasola’s studio occupied a downtown building in the 500 block of S.
El Paso Street; a stone’s throw from the International Bridge and right next door
to the Colon Theater. Citizens of Juarez, El Pasoans, soldiers from Fort Bliss,
visiting Mexican entertainers and even Border Patrol agents wanting a photo to
send back home to Wisconsin or New Hampshire, dropped into Alfonso’s studio to
have “the moments of their lives” recorded for posterity.
And so it went
for decades. The pleasant, smock-wearing photographer sharing the simple joys
and triumphs of people who wanted to be seen in their wedding best, their graduation
robes, or (for soldiers) hard-won chevrons.
After Alfonso's in 1946,
Miguel’s wife, Emma Flores, kept the studio operating until the doors finally
closed in 1992. Snapshots and cheap cameras were muscling their way to the front
of the line, pushing aside the maestro and his camera. Times had changed forever,
but seventy-one years remains a remarkable run for a family business.
Back to 1992
In 1992 while the building at S. El Paso Street was undergoing
restoration, workmen discovered thousands of negatives packed into cardboard boxes.
Someone had the good sense to recognize the historical value of these discards
and calls were made. The trove eventually found a home in the C. L. Sonnichsen
Collection of the University of Texas at El
Paso where they are currently being processed as time and funding permits.
Out of an estimated total of 50,000 negatives, less than 3,000 have been processed
to date (2007). |
 |
| Mabel
Moody
Courtesy UT El Paso, Casasola Collection |
These 3,000 are displayed
on the University’s website. The first link will take you to the list
of collections, while the following will take you to the Casasola
database.Braceros,
Babies, Beauties and Border AgentsThe
photos are shown as thumbnails which can be enlarged and are categorized into
categories of Ladies, Children, Groups, Soldiers, Weddings and “Braceros and Passaportes.”
This last photo category was not a vanity purchase, but one of necessity.
Mexican workers (Braceros in Spanish - “Arms” in English) during WWII
and through the fifties needed photos to accompany work documents. In some of
these shots, total strangers would pair up to be photographed together (on separate
sides of a single bench) to save the cost of separate photographs. |
| Unidentified
Child
Courtesy UT El Paso, Casasola Collection |
| Unidentified
Woman
Courtesy UT El Paso, Casasola Collection |
Unidentified
Woman
Courtesy UT El Paso, Casasola Collection |
Unidentified
Woman
Courtesy UT El Paso, Casasola Collection |
Unidentified
Woman
Courtesy UT El Paso, Casasola Collection |
Unidentified
Woman
Courtesy UT El Paso, Casasola Collection |
| Soldiers
of the Salvation Army
Courtesy
UT El Paso, Casasola Collection |
Unidentified
Soldier
Courtesy UT El Paso, Casasola Collection |
| Ist
Cavalry PFC
Courtesy
UT El Paso, Casasola Collection |
| Border
Patrol Agent
Courtesy
UT El Paso, Casasola Collection |
|
Today
newspapers in both El Paso
and Ciudad Juarez regularly publish photos from the collection in hopes of making
connections. To date there have been something like sixty reunions of subject
and photo – a recent match being a female septuagenarian who had once been photographed
as a seven year-old girl.
Alfonso may have known how to operate a camera,
but his services went beyond simple mechanics. He obviously was a patient man,
for not a single child is shown with so much as a frown, let alone tears. (Of
the negatives developed so far, that is). AC also managed to coax smiles from
the soldiers. One stern-looking corporal had to be photographed twice.
For the women and children, Alfonso pulled out all the stops. In some cases extra
lighting was added that would create artistic profile silhouettes. After-the-fact
hand-tinting would restore a subject’s lost vitality and youth. Hand tinting turned
everyday children (who had vitality and youth) into cherubim. It will probably
never be known if the tiaras that some women wore were brought to the studio or
provided by Mr. Casasola.
The final touch (when needed) was a clever
manipulation of emulsion on the plate, where impossibly long eyelashes could be
added without subjecting the woman to either pain or adhesive. Although it sounds
like the results of this trick would appear tawdry, the finished product reveals
improvement and, we might add, wise restraint on the part of Mr. Casasola or Emma.
While the men had rather no-nonsense poses, the women (perhaps under the
direction of Alfonso) tended to favor hands prominently displayed which makes
them look as if they are about to go to sleep, enduring a toothache or perhaps
supporting a broken jaw.
The collection is a fascinating look back at
a time before celebrity-worship when everyday people felt an obligation to provide
glamour, beauty and dignity to the general public - with a little help from a
talented enabler named Alfonso Casasola. They
Shoe Horses, Don't They? June
5, 2008 Column
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