Pictures with Stories: A Memoir

Cuban-American photographer Mendoza (Ernie: A Photographer’s Memoir) shares stories from his life in extended captions for 84 understated, compassionate, and often surreal images. The images follow Mendoza from his sunny childhood in Cuba in the 1950s through his early adulthood living in an urban commune in Boston, to courting his wife and his embrace of family life and middle age. Always willing to turn private moments into opportunities to take photos, Mendoza admits that he “figured that [his] wedding was an excellent topic for a photo project,” so he set up a makeshift studio outside of the ceremony for him to photograph the longtime married couples in attendance. In addition to photos of his personal life, Mendoza intersperses examples of his professional work, including commissioned wedding photos from the start of his career, and the images that earned him renown, such as his photo of a “very large dog about to attack an ant” and more contemporary prints of flowers. The captions often give insight into Mendoza’s life beyond the subjects in the photos; for example, the text accompanying a photo of a cat chasing a dragonfly notes that in the early 1980s, Mendoza sold prints from his museum-owned Ernie the Cat series on a New York street corner in an effort to make rent. The combination of photo essay and autobiography yields an intimate and at times touching portrait of a photographer’s life. (BookLife)