How Convenient!
Boston Bodegas and The Immigrant Experience
This photo-documentary project is primarily about the personalities and aspirations of immigrant owners of bodegas and convenience stores in Boston's neighborhoods. It is also about these unique architectural structures, their lighting, and their vivid colors. There will be a dozen framed pictures.The project differs from most documentary photography projects in several important ways.
- Artistic rendering. I capture the photographs of the buildings as artistically as I can. The shots do not include chain stores like 7-Eleven or Tedeschi's. Instead, there are of true corner stores, many of them originally carriage houses. I photograph them at dusk, shortly after sunset, and pay special attention to color, angle, and background. I use modern digital darkroom techniques to capture the full dynamic range of each store.
- Environmental portraiture. I photograph the owners in their stores behind the counters and render the photographs in black and white, in contrast to the vivid colors of the outside stores.
- Oral history. I interview the owners, inquiring about their personal histories and their thoughts about being convenience store owners and managers. Each short interview is included on a 13 x 19 framed composite with two photographs: one of the store and one of the owner. See the included PDF file for an example.
Most importantly, this documentary project celebrates these hard-working store owners, giving them chances to have their voices heard through the medium of artful photography.
-Peter Bates