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Ebook on Ronda
RONDA: AN INTIMATE PORTRAIT OF A SOUTHERN STREET PROSTITUTE
Volume One
To read about this photo of Ronda, see Volume Two
RONDA: AN INTIMATE PORTRAIT OF A SOUTHERN STREET PROSTITUE
Volume One
To read about this photo of Ronda, see Volume Two
RONDA: AN INTIMATE PORTRAIT OF A SOUTHERN STREET PROSTITUTE
Volume One
To read about this photo of Ronda, see Volume Two
Today I'm a mischievous red light prostitute, yet still a girl who appreciates class. Therefore I'm wearing my luxurious Marks & Spencer playsuit; a top quality piece that is made of super soft satin that really feels and looks like silk. I combined the playsuit with white stockings that light up nicely in the UV stage light, and with fitting high heels. Now let's get on with it, let's prostitute!
Disclaimer:
I am not for sale and this is just a photo shoot for fun.
RONDA: AN INTIMATE PORTRAIT OF A SOUTHERN STREET PROSTITUTE
Volume One
To read about this photo of Ronda, see Volume Two
Maxwell Bodenheim - Georgie May
Lancer Books 606, 1961
Cover Artist: Oscar Liebman
"The truest novel about the mind, body and soul of a prostitute since 'Nana'."
They are two ladies taking a taxi in 1920s London, as you can see from the license plate.
Nothing suggests they're prostitutes.
More information can be found by clicking here;
fakehistoryhunter.wordpress.com/2017/03/06/not-two-prosti...
RONDA: AN INTIMATE PORTRAIT OF A SOUTHERN STREET PROSTITUE
Volume One
To read about this photo of Ronda, see Volume Two
Life around my family was never dull. After my grandmother passed away, my grandfather met Helga, who had been a prostitute in Germany. All of Helga's friends were prostitutes, as well, and going to Pop's house for lunch after church on Sundays was quite an experience with some of the colorful women he had lounging poolside!
The younger woman in the foreground of the picture was, I believe, Helga's daughter in law, who was not a prostitute, at least not that I knew, but was subjected to the same entourage we were!
The lady in the background WAS one of Helga's old buddies from the brothel days. The sad fact was that Most of the women were really quite nice. They just had really bad morals!
Perhaps that's why Helga's daughter in law was wearing pearls. Back then, they were considered very lady like and elegant, and she may have been trying to differentiate herself from some of the more disreputable people who showed up in Pop and Helga's photos! After all, pearls are not generally worn while sunbathing, even if you ARE a jewelry-aholic!
I believe she would have been the one who inherited my grandmother's cocktail ring that my mother had to sell to Helga to put food on our table. It has been a source of great displeasure to me to think about that, as the ring was supposed to become mine as a wedding present back in the 80's, and would now be worth probably about $25,000 or more. Oh, well. I wonder what might have happened to it, since she and her husband remained childless.
Somewhere, somebody is wearing my grandmother's ring, but on THAT day, pearls were the adornment of the moment...
Just so you know, the photo was taken by my grandfather, Lucien Toucas. I am restoring many old photos and slides, and even though these are not family members, I really liked the shot.
From the back cover:
"This is Ruxton Street. Fat, soiled Hagen rules this street of prostitutes, workers, dope-pushers -- and lost souls. Yet people love and live on Ruxton, as they do on any back street in your own home town."
Yes, Tina is a hooker.
Once I reached the 80s of my 100 Stranger Project, I began thinking about my #100. However, the idea to portray a hooker was even older. I think it began when I read a pejorative remark about prostitutes on facebook.
My 100 Strangers Project has not only taken me on a personal journey, but it also turned into a cross-section of our society – far from being representative, but highly subjective instead. And yet some kind of cross-section. In the cities, we seem to live amidst a faceless mass of people, and the Project demonstrates that this mass consists of real people with real faces and every face has its own story - we just tend to forget about that. In fact, I've found that the Project is a way to connect to humanity, as one of my flickr contacts put it in a personal email. And prostitutes are a part of that mass of people that we tend to ignore. I guess most clients use prostitutes while trying to ignore the personal individuality of the prostitute.
The personal journey I mentioned above consists of many aspects – I won't even begin getting into them. But one of them is to overcome the inner resistance to approach unknown people. I think when I reached stranger #20 that resistance faded. Rejections have been a tremendous asset to it. Once you get rejected and once you accept that for what it is, for a mere simple fact, it sets you free.
That is why I haven't changed my routine of asking strangers for their photos throughout the Project (there are only very few exceptions, mostly from the beginning of the Project when I was still developing that routine): I've simply said to most of my strangers something like „hello“ or „excuse me“ and then always: „I'd like to take a photo of you.“ Then I waited for the reaction of my stranger and went from there.
A slightly different approach might have lowered my PoD (Probability of Denial), but as much as my Project was about photos and people and faces and everything else it was about the reaction of people to a simple question that for them seemed to come out of nowhere. I like to think that I learned from that, too.
Anyway, after getting well into the Project, I sometimes still felt nervous about approaching someone – but there was no doubt that if I really wanted someone in the Project, I wouldn't let that nervousness stop me from asking.
However, walking into a whorehouse prooved to be another great challenge. But once I was inside, asking wasn't so hard any more.
I have talked to many girls that day. All of them declined. Some of them were very kind, they were interested in the Project and we got to talk a little bit about themselves, too. Others reacted differently, and one girl even yelled at me and hit me with her scarf after we had already talked for a while and I still refused to come inside her room as a regular client.
Many of the girls made me feel like asking for a simple portrait was much more obscene than asking for a blowjob. I'm not blaming the girls or the pimps or the clients or society as a whole, I'm merely observing a fact.
But enough of that lengthy prelude, what about Tina?
Tina was on the phone when I approached her, lying on a bed in her room. She declined like everyone else – at first. At some point of our conversation, she said a portrait was possible, but it would cost me dearly. I had of course already explained about the Project, but now I tried to explain why it was a very important aspect of the Project to not pay for a photo. Every person agreeing to participate in my Project needs to do so out of free will, not driven or bought by money. (Eugen, my stranger #35, being the exception I'd like to make undone.)
I'm not sure anymore what made Tina change her mind; I'm not even sure there is anything specific I said or did. However, she finally agreed to the photo. I asked her to lift the shades on the window a little bit, for it was really dark in the house with only a faint red light but there was still daylight outside. She ignored my request and I took a few shots of her lying on her bed face-down.
After that, she wanted to see the photos on the camera display. I showed them to her but she grimaced and said: Those are horrible. I told her it was only the faint red light; she switched on the „real“ lights that were almost as faint. She turned a little bit and I took another photo. When she saw that one, she said: That's nice.
All that time while we were talking and while I was taking the photos Tina was still on the phone. She just held it in her hand and every now and then she would raise it to her ear and say something in a foreign language. I ignored that but was really puzzled when some time after the photos she gave me the phone and said: My brother wants to talk to you.
I was worrying that the person she referred to as her brother might in fact be her pimp. I had given Tina my card with my name on it, just like I did with all my other strangers and in fact all the people I ever approached, even if they declined. Nevertheless, I took the phone and talked to the guy on the other end.
The guy spoke German very well (opposite to Tina who came from Romania just a month ago). He asked me why I wanted a photo of Tina. I explained about the Project, and to my surprise, the guy seemed quite friendly and said ok, approving of it.
Relieved, I gave Tina back the phone, I thanked her and said good-bye.
Please bear in mind it is not my intent to judge Tina or her job or anything else. I'm not saying this is cool, and I'm not saying this is bad. My sole intent is to give Tina a face.
Thank you, Tina, for allowing me to try that. I know: Technically, this isn't a very good photo. However, I hope that it goes beyond that.
So, Tina is my stranger #100 and my journey comes to an end.
Does it? Yes, it does.
Does that mean I won't be approaching strangers any more? I doubt that, but I know it won't be the same. Oh, there's still a lot to learn - but it's gonna be a different journey. Maybe at first I will feel relieved in a way, just shooting out of the moment - and probably with far shorter write-ups. And eventually, something else may evolve from it, there's no way to tell.
For now, it's time to say thank you. Thank you to all you guys out there that have followed me on my journey and supported me - especially the people that form this marvelous flickr group that I have been part of and that I've had the privilege to help moderate. Thank you to my wife, who not only tolerated my crazy obsession with the Stranger Project, but in fact supported me and without whom I maybe wouldn't have approached Tina.
And, of course, once again, thank you to all my strangers – to the ones that agreed as well as to the ones that declined!
***
Find out more about the project at the group page 100 Strangers.
For all strangers unfamiliar with flickr: You can easily see yourself and all my other strangers in my 100 Strangers set here.
Now almost totally hidden by the highrises that surround it, Minna Street in downtown San Francisco has a most unusual history. The street was named for Minnie ("Minna") Rae Simpson (1860-???), a preteen prostitute who lived and worked in this area in the second half of the 19th Century.
Left as an orphan at the age of nine, Minnie turned to prostitution in order to make a living. A year later she traveled to England where she met J. M. Barrie (who later wrote 'Peter Pan'). She became pregnant and claimed to be Barrie's wife. The character of 'Wendy' in Peter Pan may have been based on Minnie Rae. Returning to San Francisco she became friends with Emperor Norton I (Joshua A. Norton, 1818-1880). Both lived on the streets of San Francisco in the 1870's with Norton referring to her as "The Little Countess". The fate of Minnie Rae is unknown. She disappeared in 1873.
Minna Street is more of an alley today. In many places, shaded by the highrises that surround it, the sun never settles on the street below. In this recent photograph, the building seen in the background is the new Salesforce Tower. Immediately in front of the Tower is the '100 First Street Building' and, in front of that (marked "Trulia") is the '535 Mission Street Building'. On the right of the photograph is the 'Salesforce Transit Center' or, 'Transbay Terminal', a new 21st century transportation hub that will oneday serve the entire Bay Area and beyond.