These images are from a series of over 400 photographs which were taken while I was working as the location sound recordist and still photographer on the set of the first English language “Lucha Libre” (or “Free Fighting”) genre horror films : “Mil Máscaras versus the Aztec Mummy”, “Academy of Doom”, and “Aztec Revenge”.
Mil Máscaras, who has starred in Mexican “Lucha Libre” films since the early 60’s, and the subject of many of these photos, is a worldwide celebrity.
If one Googles “Mil+Mascaras” one gets over 350,000 hits from dozens of countries. In Japan, where he popularized “Lucha Libre” in the 70s, he is known as "Kamen Kizoku" (“The Masked Noble”).
I believe “Mil” to be one of the last true "Superheroes", a true legend of our times. He is a paragon of luchador fighting spirit, a rare combination of quiet humility and incredible physical prowess. At 78, he continues to travel globally performing dozens of wrestling exhibitions each year. His decision to remain constantly masked combined with his social compassion is a paradox of ‘identity’ : the mysterious masked wrestler who extols virtue, but conceals his private identity behind the mask.
As professional wrestler and author Michael Spillane writes : Lucha Libre contains a lot of elements pro-wrestling does not. The most key of these differences is the anonymity of the athletes themselves…. No single prop is loaded with as much drama as the mask of a luchador. To wear it is to defy the opposition, to deny them your identity and to assume the traits symbolized by the mask itself, becoming larger than life.
Taken on the set of Mil Mascaras vs The Aztec Mummy
Commonly confused with American professional wrestling, “Lucha Libre” has its own distinct history and traditions, much of which is borrowed from Mexico’s rich indigenous customs and symbolism. The mask as used in Mexico dates from antiquity when persons would conceal their identity with a mask in order to be empowered by a spiritual entity without being conflicted and connected to their actual identity. The same is true today when luchadores (wrestlers) who don a mask to become superheros, and upon entering the ring, symbolically fight against an opponent who represents evil and the multitudes of social inequities that are part of everyday life. In many ways “Lucha Libre” has more in common with the arts of dance and theater than with sports.
As professional wrestler and author Michael Spillane writes : Lucha libre contains a lot of elements pro-wrestling does not. The most key of these differences is the anonymity of the athletes themselves…. No single prop is loaded with as much drama as the mask of a luchador. To wear it is to defy the opposition, to deny them your identity and to assume the traits symbolized by the mask itself, becoming larger than life.
These photographs were taken in Chapel Hill, NC during 2015-2017 and highlight the nightly annual Halloween celebration. The town closes down the main street and the celebrating continues until midnight.
Artists Statement
Harlem Valley / Wingdale Project
Since receiving my first camera as a child, I have loved visual paradox (making visible what's there but hidden somehow) and that theme seems to be one of the common threads throughout my work. The Harlem Valley / Wingdale Project is no exception. I am drawn to the incredibly paradoxical beauty as expressed in the slow transformation from man-made order into the beauty of natural chaos. These photographs submitted were taken from the over 5,000 images taken over the last 3 years inside, (with permission and inside a HazMat suit) subtracting formalized and often abstract beauty from the chaos inside. Opened in 1924, the buildings at Harlem Valley have been abandoned since it's closing in 1994.
The interiors of many of the buildings in the complex are toxic. The air is filled with mold (from long standing water), and asbestos and lead paint cover the floors.
I am not an "End Times" photographer in that what interests me is the logos, rather than the pathos, that my photographs evoke. I love the stillness and quiet of the place. All I can hear is my breath through the respirator and HazMat suit I have to wear, much like a diver undersea.... In addition, the absolute lack of my seeing anything living (except an occasional fern or moss trying to eek out an existence) continues the metaphor of a diver visiting a bleached and dying coral reef, once thriving with life, but now lifeless and stark, man being the catalyst to nature's relentless predisposition to return to chaos.
Avery Danziger’s The Gate to Hell
Cynthia Roznoy
Curator, Mattatuck Museum Waterbury, CT
Over a year in planning and after a 6,000 mile, seventeen hour flight and a six hour rough ride in a Land Rover into the desert, photographer Avery Danziger arrived at "The Gate to Hell ", the terrifying moniker given to the 230-feet wide flaming crater, situated in the vast, sparsely populated Karakum desert in northern Turkmenistan.
Danziger is one of the few photographers to extensively document this site. He finds the place compelling for both for its mystery and its uniqueness. “It is fascinating,” he comments, “it is visually stunning, and the place bowled me over with its unnatural, manmade beauty.” The works in this exhibition are drawn from more than 1,500 images Danziger made while at The Gate to Hell. The subjects range from the poetic splendor of moonlit shots that capture the crater’s golden aura, to close-up views of flaming geysers, glorious and horrific at the same time. The contrasts between dark and light, the drama of flame into ash and the hope that comes with each dawn are exquisitely captured by Danziger’s unmanipulated time exposures.
These photographs highlight broad tonal areas — the golden glow of the burning gas against the pitch black sky, the forward marching desert sands contrasting with the jewel nighttime blue sky. In this way Danziger emphasizes the expressive potential of the photograph. Danziger moves skillfully between soft focus expressionism, as evidenced in the evocative moon-light series, and sharp focus abstraction as in Geyser Flame and Sidewall Flame. While the subject reflects contemporary environmental concerns, the images are not documentary in nature. In rising above reportage, the photographs affirm the photographer as an artist and the photograph as a thing of beauty.
Inspired since childhood to making visible what is there, but somehow hidden, Danziger successfully brings this important natural disaster to our attention in these stunning images as he reveals and bears witness for each of us. As visual records of a historically and environmentally important event, Danziger’s photographs are compelling pictures that enable us to make sense from chaos.
The Gay Girls Riding Club (GGRC)
1984-1987
This series was started in 1984 when I first attended the GGRC Halloween Costume Ball held in Los Angeles. This annual themed festival attracted thousands of participants who worked on their costumes and body decorations for countless hours before the event.
I attended and photographed the event for 4 years.
These photographs were taken from 1978 until the present day. These are not models, they are friends who asked that I photograph them or were enlisted to work with me creating this series.
For example, the series “The Limitations of Being” I asked a friend and ballet dancer to pose for me using only Red, Green, and Blue lights for exposure. Where all three lights illuminate her evenly, it appears that she is lit by ordinary white light, where her body (hands, etc.) blocks the light, the shadows appear in the primary (Red, Green, and Blue) and secondary colors (Cyan, Magenta, and Yellow).
There is no photoshop manipulation to achieve these images.
