The Congress library takes care of some of the most important images in the country and recently achieved an attractive set of photographs taken by Edwin Martin, who documented six travel circles from 1983 to 1986.
Martin donated 138 of his circus photos and the Congress library recently published seven of them. blog post With an interview with the photographer for the World Circus Day (19 April).
Martin’s visit to Circus’s picture began in 1983, almost accident when he was a philosophy professor at Indiana University Bloomington and started to detect photography. He started taking pictures of his sons at a Pentax K1000 and later enrolled in a photo course at the university.
One afternoon in 1983, he took a picture of Carson & Barns Circus during a stop in Indiana. He liked one of the enough pictures to send a picture to the company, as well as with a bold offer: allow him to join the circus on the road, the camera in Tow. For his surprise, he said yes.
By the spring of 1984, Martin found himself in Isabella, California, where the Circus was picking up his tent in the heat of the desert. He captured an ether photo of light through the hole in the canvas, holding the afternoon lights. “It was very dusty and very dirty,” he explains to the Congress library.
In the next three weeks, Martin traveled in six states with Carson and Barns. “We woke up before dawn,” they say. “We met in trucks and went at a distance of 100 miles.” On arrival, artists and workers piled to take the animals and uncontrollable the tent. Martin documented all this: uncontrolled moments of fatigue, pieces of daily life, hard physical work behind the spectacle.
He has a picture of Dalhart, Texas. It shows a clinist named Phil that he is applying his makeup, while another, EJ, sleeps nearby. Martin says, “Whenever you reflect the need to sleep,” Martin says. The image shows the fragmented rhythm of the circus life, where the days begin quickly and late.
Traveling without a mobile darkroom, Martin had to wait to develop his photos, before he could take a look at what he was capturing. He explains that a shot that he was trying to get was a clown silhouette at night inside a tent. Nowadays, photographers simply see their LCD screen whether the exposure is correct or not. But on the film, you are flying in the dark.
But when he re -joined Wisconsin with Carson and Barns the following year, Martin brought print out of hand. “He enjoyed the pictures,” he explains to the library. “Many people were taking pictures of him, but many people did not give him pictures.”
The project left Martin with permanent respect for artists. He recalls that Hiwire recalled the temperature at the top of the tent and the cool skills of Pat, tolerating a large cat instructor. “She was skilled and she had special knowledge,” he says. “He was a valuable member of the congregation.”
The article does not mention the dispute over placing animals in circus, something that leaves many people behind and is banned in a handful of states. In 2017, Ringling Brothers and Barnam and Bailey Circus permanently stopped using animals after a 146 -year run.
Nevertheless, the circus project helped shape Martin’s path as a photographer. After the series ended in 1986, he continued the shooting, including the assignments. Indianapolis news And individual projects on rural life.
Turning back, he says, “I think one of the strength of photography … is documenting the methods of life that we really do not know that we have only vague ideas.”
Image Credit: Photos by Edwin Martin/The Library of Congress
