A CONVERSATION WITH JULIE FISHKIN

The eccentric French poet Charles Baudelaire spoke of man's need to quell his solitude, a reason he visited prostitutes and eventually contracted syphilis. He shared their passion for carnal flesh and resolved to satisfy "the invinsible taste for prostitution in the heart of man." The antidote to loneliness is nothing shameful and yet societal stigmas abound and perhaps rightfully so. Yet, when prostitution becomes a place of solace, a comfortable house with food, a room, and good company, endorsed and protected by the government of Nevada with applicable states regulations, it somehow ceases to be a sordid sleaze fest and becomes a place to go, not unlike a home away from home. Such is the documentation Marc McAndrews has collected for the past several years that he's traveled to these brothels photographing all their employees and patrons. How did you start photographing brothels? Were you a big stripclub goer? I was staying in a motel, the Cadillac Inn in Lovelock NV, and there was a group of bikers returning from Sturgis who were in the room next to mine. We became friends and at some point one of the guys' girlfriends asked me if I had ever been to the poker run in the brothels in the area. Apparently one or two motorcycle organizations have a poker run, where people go around from brothel to brothel collecting playing cards and at the end of the run they all meet at one of the brothels and hand out prizes for best hand, worst hand, etc. Around this time I was regularly driving around the country photographing various projects and the brothels seemed like a great subject. A few months later I was getting ready to go back out to start this new brothel project and I began telling everyone about how I was going to go and it was going to be great and I had all these ideas of what I was going to find when I got there. And that was all fine and good when I was on the east coast in NY. But when I drove out there and pulled up in front of my first brothel and I vividly remember sitting in the parking lot in my van, my stomach in knots from nerves, taking deep breathes over and over and mentally kicking myself for ever telling anyone I was ever going to do this! At that point all I wanted to do was turn around and run and hide in the closest bar. I was never really one for strip clubs and I hadn't really been to a brothel before. I eventually got out of the van and I walked up and buzzed the buzzer to be let in and went inside still completely out of sorts and unsure of what I was going to say. I'm sure I looked totally uncomfortable. After a few rejections I was eventually directed out to Mona’s ranch in Elko, NV. In Elko, the 4 brothels are a block off of the main square and are all basically at one intersection. I walked into Mona’s and gave the speech that I had started to develop and showed some work from some magazines and other projects and portraits. I was directed over to Carli who was the 'big sister' of the house and she told me to come into the kitchen to have a seat. After giving me permission to photograph, she pats me on my hand and says, "listen, honey, you gotta relax, no ones gonna hurt you here." I have to ask, are you yourself a brothel patron? You can lie. A lot of people ask me that. I've never actually answered that question. I think it would change the way people view the work: are the photographs done by someone who actively participates in prostitution or are they done by someone who thinks he's too good to hire a prostitute and how does that affect the viewer's take on my objectivity. I think it goes without saying that obviously there is a very strong atmosphere of sex in the brothels and over the course of the project at one point or another I have been propositioned. I will also say that because I’m not one of the regular customers there's a much different interaction and dynamic between me and the women. There's something very kind and human about the faces of these women and the space they occupy. Clearly that's intentional in the way you show them but have you developed a relationship with them that goes beyond the traditional sitter-photographer dynamic? To me the brothels have always had the feel of a mini-play. The people and environments are very exaggerated like actors on their art-directed sets. Adding to this effect is the fact that most of the women work under different names: Sapphire, Jade, Natural, Trixxy Starr. The photographs feel like an extension of that idea. At the same time my main goal has been to create a cultural, almost anthropological, survey. These are, after all, real people in real places. I think there is always a separation between sitter and photographer. I'm not there as part of the business, Im always the outsider looking in, watching them. That dynamic doesn't prevent an understanding and an affinity from developing. I think it's this connection which comes through to create that softness, kindness and humanness that you talked about. These women workers, just like the truck drivers who visit them, just like the waitresses in your other series . . . did you look to Atget, whose "Petits Metiers" work from turn-of-the-century France captured the smaller, forgotten laborers within modern society? I had seen Atget's images but I think a stronger influence is August Sander's "man of the 20th century." I remember when I first saw it I spent the bulk of a day standing in a bookstore looking through all its volumes. The breadth of the work and the time, commitment and patience required to create such a complete document of a cultural moment really struck me. Also, the photographs didn't critique or apologize for his subjects. The flower seller was treated the same way as the Nazi soldier. You shoot with a 4x5, which is a large format camera that requires greater compositional planning and time spent with your subject. How does this contribute to or affect the nature of the photograph? I think shooting with a 4x5 helps to define the interaction. There's a certain amount of gravitas that shooting with a larger camera adds. There's also a bit more trust that has to be established, especially now that everyone is used to digital cameras. With film there's no immediacy, there's no image to see on the back of a camera, there's no image popping up on a screen. They have to trust you and the type of image you're going to make of them. I also think that in a situation like the brothels and trying to take the photographs that I’m taking (I’m not doing action, or "a day in the life of" pictures) the larger camera on a tripod helps to make everybody at ease. They know at all times where the camera is facing, they know when you're behind the camera. The hardest part wasn't always finding subjects or getting permission, it was making everybody at ease. Even the women I wasn't photographing had to be comfortable with me being there. If someone became upset or it seemed like I was creating unnecessary drama, it would just make it that much harder for me to get any work done. You mentioned that you live with them in the brothel for days at a time. Is it a dormitory-like relationship or more of a boarding house? What is daily life like in a modern brothel? Each brothel is different, but in general its much more like a dormitory than a boarding house. The average work agreement lasts about 2 weeks and the women tend to change houses every few months or so. In every brothel each woman has her own room. In the country brothels it's usually 2 or 3 to a bathroom with a common kitchen, laundry and lounge area. In the ones that are closer to the cities the women will usually have their own bathrooms but will still share the kitchen, laundry and lounge. City brothels are generally a bit nicer, either newer structures or converted houses. Their country counterparts tend to be more along the doublewide trailers. Life inside the two types of brothels is pretty different also. The country ones rely mostly on truckers and miners passing through, offering free coffee, showers, overnight truck parking and sometimes food to anyone with a commercial driver's license. A lot of the truckers just come in for the company and drinks at the bar. While the women in the country brothels tend to live there for their entire 2 weeks, the city brothels are much more active. The women work more defined shifts and many women live outside the brothels in apartments in town. One thing that struck me in both types of brothels was the normalcy and routine of life there. Have you come to view these women in a different light? Do they have crazy tales to tell? Like I said, when I first started this project I had all these ideas of desert brothels and I was expecting something seedy and dirty and, honestly, that was one of the things that attracted me to the idea, visually speaking. By actually staying in the brothels I really found myself in a unique situation. After I was done for the day I would stay up with them sitting at the bar while they were working or sit in the lounge with them while they were waiting for people to come in. I would hear a lot of their personal stories, about their kids, their boyfriends, husbands, parents, what they would rather be doing; we'd talk about politics. The fact that they were prostitutes no longer became the thing that defined them. Like with anyone it's one thing to meet them and photograph them and it's an entirely different thing to pass the milk and cereal at breakfast in the morning. For a lot of the women, when they talk about how they ended up in the brothels they have very intense stories. A lot of women used to work on the streets where it is much more dangerous. Other women had pretty normal lives and chose to be there for different reasons. I've met a high school math teacher who works there for a few weeks on summer break, a woman who's putting herself through medical school, and a woman who started on the streets to support her drug habit. One thing I found is that there's no cut and dry answer for why people are there. [Side note: in my experience drugs are not prevalent in the brothels.] Is there something inherently American about this project? I think there's something inherently American about the storyline of the brothels. Some of the first women in the west came as paid courtesans. As the railroads were being built the brothels were built along with them. Some of the first structures along the railroad lines were brothels for the women. Brothels are intricately tied to the local economies of the smaller towns. The taxes and registration fees oftentimes help to boost the budgets of smaller counties (Pahrump just used $60,000 in brothel fees to buy new ambulances). In Carlin, "whorehouse" Charlie supports the local little league. Well known Americans have also figured prominently in Nevada’s brothels. Jack Dempsey met and married a working girl, later buying a brothel and living there with her from 1919 to 1935; during the time he was heavyweight-boxing champion (1919 -- 1926). Have you considered documenting the sex industry in general, all over the world, or is there something more to these Nevada brothels that interests you specifically? I don't plan on expanding the Nevada Rose project to brothels around the world. My focus is still American culture; brothels are just one aspect of that.

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