J A N E T D E L A N E Y | Too Many Products
In 1980, as a young photographer just beginning her MFA in San Francisco and developing a keen interest in documenting labor, Janet Delaney embarked for a week on the job with her soon-to-retire father. The days are long and exhausting, but there is, in the incessant driving, hauling and chatting, a restless, pulsing energy streaming from Delaney’s photographs.
Photographing beauty parlors with a critical distance (she did, after all, grow up in a time of questioning constricted gender roles and capitalist consumer culture), using frontal, wide shots and often bright flash, Delaney created a witty documentation of a typical day in the life of a salesman. Despite the photo-novella humor, Delaney came to see her father’s work under new light. All the tough business dealings, all the missed dinners and the Saturday sales meetings, became a testament to his efforts to provide more for his children than he ever had growing up. The story, ultimately, became a testament to his love.
