Pixiport:The Voice Behind The Lens Michael Dubiner

     As a lawyer, I spent about 20 years traveling to Palm Beach County's western most reaches to the courthouse in Belle Glade once or twice a month. The town is located about 45 miles or so west of Palm Beach and is a very short distance from the southern rim of Lake Okeechobee. It is an old farming community struggling with modern times. It has many problems but also engenders a fair amount of civic pride.

     
Recently, my daughter drove me out to the Glades to do some photography. For me, photographing the Glades has been a project in the making for almost 25 years. This afternoon Jeannie drove me out to Belle Glade to help in the quest to photograph the essence of Belle Glade, as least from the photographic prospective. On this trip there was no attempt at a fair or balanced depiction of the area. I could have shot at many different locations. The two I chose were photographed solely for their ability to tell a short story in images. There was little research or planning for this trip. I knew some things that would be photogenic out there and I was anxious to capture them and to enlighten my daughter as to what life was like only a one half hour drive from home.

     The drive out to the Glades is full of varying views of sugarcane, a unique pallette that changes by the hour and by the season. Some might quibble with the word "pollution" in my title. I don't know if the sugar mills are actually causing pollution (although I was taught if it looks like it and smells like it-it probably is). If they are causing pollution, I do not know if the fumes being emitted by the mills are harmful to man, beast or vegetable. I am hyper-sensitive to odors and the smell, while palpably sweet, gets sickening very quickly, like a too rich piece of cake or coffee that is too sweet. The smell is somewhere between that of coffee and manure. As you can see, this sugar mill, at the edge of town was belching out smoke. These are the remnants of the processing of sugar cane, the residue of the creation of sugar. Much to their credit or ignorance, some of the office employees of the mill I photographed work in a compact multi-storied building just downwind of the smoke.

     The last time I photographed this view, which was many years ago testing out a new film camera, I was accompanied by my wife. At that time I was threatened with arrest for trespassing by a private security guard that was parroting every word that was being broadcast out of his walkie-talkie by his commander. It seemed to bother the guard and his superior little that I was photographing from a public road. This trip, I was either unnoticed or the policy of the mill toward photographers had changed.

     The other, quite different area of Belle Glade that I wanted to photograph, and felt my daughter should see, was the downtown ghetto. Among its distinctions, this area has the combination of high poverty, high crime and significant drug abuse. Additionally, it's title as the AIDS capital of the United States many years ago and its overall rundown condition leaves the average person passing through somewhat depressed.

     As in many areas in the North and South, the worst neighborhoods are highly segregated. In most of this area my daughter and I were the only whites. As I was approaching the group below, little girl, who I was afraid was going to become a Pied Piper began chanting; "he's gonna get his ass kicked". If I could have turned back at that moment, I would have. Most surprising in this area is the number of people milling around. During the summer, the congestion on the streets is understandable as some of the apartments in this area lack air conditioning. However, during this pleasant weekday, apparently healthy adults of all ages were obviously not working, or at least not working very much when I saw them.

     I have lived though many lofty government crusades, Lyndon Johnson's Great Society, Bill Clinton's assurances regarding Welfare to Work and now our stylish compassionate conservatism. No major program has changed the despair in parts of the Glades. They are finally getting the promise of clean water to replace the discolored and carcinogenic liquid that spews from their taps and some limited new housing and perhaps a host of programs that I am not aware of. What I do know is that the depressing air of poverty still runs through this area. Either we have spent poorly, or not enough, or something. These people, and their children, are worth more to our society as hardworking individuals, paying taxes and contributing to the national good. As a nation, as a people that sometimes take very moral and self righteous stands, we owe it to them and to ourselves to get it done, right, once and for all and now.

     

(The author, Michael Dubiner is a professional image maker and lawyer who
lives in Wellington, Florida. His articles will appear twice monthly on
PixiPort. His work can be seen at target=_self>PixiPort.com and at his web site, href="http://www.duby.com/" target=_blank>duby.com.)