Böcker av Charles H. Traub

These on-the-spot portraits of "the fallen" were taken to reveal the dignity and unexamined humanity of those who were once intrinsic to the urban experience of American cities of the late 1970s. In Charles H. Traub's own words: "It is my hope that these photographs of the tenants of the streets of Uptown Chicago and the Bowery New York serve as a tribute to the grace of the 'down and out.'" And from Tom Huhn's essay in the book: "What a curious thing to look at, and to look for: whatever there is in each of us-by spying what might be found missing in someone else." Indifference and gentrification have displaced those who once inhabited the missions and shelters that nurtured and held them together in a storied bond. While homeless, they were not wayward; they formed a fabled tribe and were known to their neighbors by their names, eccentricities and their plight. Nelson Algren's famous book A Walk on the Wild Side asks why "lost people sometimes develop to greater human beings than those who have never been lost in their lives." Traub's Skid Row confirms this and these inhabitants' part in the central fabric of the city.

Twenty years ago Traub abandoned all pretense of trying to find specific themes and subjects in his photographic wanderings other than to make Taradiddles, embracing fully the digital image which is always questioned for its further and inherent potential for distortion. Ironically, the witty and sardonic juxtaposition of Traub's images, are only a matter of framing his discoveries - here, there and everywhere. This volume is a collection of trifles that become matters of remarkable social commentary when Traub photographs them - "For me, serendipity, coincidence and chance are more interesting than any preconceived construct of our human encounters." (Charles H. Traub) - in a hundred plus images Traub seems to have captured the common incongruities of a global society. Traub took these pictures in more than 60 cities around the world: Dubai, Shanghai, Beijing, Rome, Tunis, Buenos Aires, Budapest, Moscow, St. Petersburg, Santo Domingo, New York, just to name a few.