us - mexico border survey

This project surveys the visual drama of the border, the way it marks the land, and also the human drama, politics, economics and history embedded in a barrier, the way a person's geographic position a few yards one way or the other can provide them with a profoundly different life experience.

As I photographed the border from the Mexican side I tried to imagine how it must look to immigrants from the south, arriving there for the first time and being able to peer beyond the walls into the United States. What are their hopes and expectations? I would be terrified to cross the border without documents, yet thousands of people do it every day.

William is a photographer based in Los Angeles and a contributor to the border film project: www.borderfilmproject.com

William Howard