RUSS MARSHALL PHOTOGRAPHS: October 2010


This old city tavern in the heart of Detroit is long gone. I think I was in the place maybe twice. Brightly lit, smokey, individuals and couples sitting at tables while mostly men were bellied up to the bar. Maybe a pool table at the rear of the room, a jukebox at low volume and cigarette vending machines just inside the front entrance. The street is Cass Ave. near Mack Ave. which is north a couple miles of downtown Detroit. I was employed nearby and frequently walked these streets looking for something interesting to shoot. I don't believe I ever printed this shot until just a few years ago while scouring old proof sheets (again) for something interesting to print that perhaps I'd overlooked. I was in the process of hopefully finding several old negatives I'd made around the city going back to the late 1950s when I first began taking pictures. I knew early on the importance of dating and cataloging.

LONDON and Europe Doc

A documentary look at London and European cities in late 1980s. An 138pg book of 79 b&w photographs on the streets of London, Paris, Budapest, Berlin by documentary photographer Russ Marshall. This is a soft cover, 11x8.5 perfect bound magazine format book and comes encased in an archival clear polypropylene book cover for protection from finger prints and scratches. The photographs were taken on trips to England and Europe in the years of 1987, 89 and 90. I was on assignment on a couple of the trips for an American based international labor and political publication. Many were subsequently used in other publications. Some were sold through galleries and a fine art photography representative I was signed on with at the time. Thirteen - fifteen prints will be part of a larger exhibition in November 2020 - June 2021 at the Detroit Institute of Arts in Detroit, MI. For those interested -- the photographs were all shot on Tri-X film in Nikons. CLICK on cover image to take you to ETSY to order.

FACTORY

FACTORY is an 8.5x11 magazine format publication. Soft cover and perfect bound with 100 pages of 69 black and white photographs of industrial laborers in automobile factories, foundries and mills. Most were shot in and around Detroit and Michigan from 1960-2000. Others in Ohio and Pennsylvania. This is a follow-up companion publication to "THIS WORKING LIFE: Photographs of Labor and Industry, Works by Labor Writers and Poets". (2011) Both publications give voice to the mass of anonymous laborers and acknowledge that their efforts, their skills and their lives mattered and that they did exist at that time and in that place. Russ Marshall's 30 year freelance career took him from the peopled streets of Detroit's inner city to the board rooms of commerce and industry. From the jazz clubs and strip joints to the foundries and assembly lines of the Big 3. His photographs are held by universities and museums and exhibited from Maine to Mexico. CLICK on cover image to go to ETSY to order.

Detroit Doc

A book of B&W photographs of Detroit (mostly people) from 1960s - 2000s. Russ' 30 year freelance career took him from the peopled streets of Detroit's inner city to the auto factories' assembly lines and foundries, jazz clubs and strip joints, Tommy Hearns' Kronk gym to Detroit Eastern Market's pork brains, fish tails and hog farmers. Working girls plying their trade on Cass Ave. and at the now closed Fisher Body Plant on Fort Street. A few pages of narrative description. 6x9/ 182 pages/ 119 B&W photographs - many are double page spreads. Soft cover perfect bound. CLICK on cover image to go to ETSY to order.

My Navy Life 1960-1964

This is a 51 year look back at Russ Marshall's 4 years service in the U.S. Navy. From boot camp to duty stations in Florida, Guantanamo Bay, Cuba and Puerto Rico where he served as a Navy photographer. He was there during the Cuban Missile Crisis There are a lot of photos in this 212 pg book -- more than 200 mostly taken by Russ . Many are work related and many others show the lighter side of a bunch of 2o year old photographer sailors partying in the lab, on the beach, at USO events and on liberty trips to Jamaica, Haiti and San Juan. CLICK on the photo to go to book order site at Amazon.

THE KIBITZER TAVERN - 1967