Circus. A Traveling Life

Norma I. Quintana is a photographer and educator working in the tradition of social documentary. In her first monograph, Circus. A Traveling Life, Quintana shoots in black and white film and available light to chronicle her decade-long collaboration with an American, traveling one-ring circus. The photographs in the book are not flash frozen, but a loving history of extended families, another way of living in this world. Essentially self-taught, Quintana has studied with some of the world’s most important and influential photographers, such as Mary Ellen Mark, Shelby Lee Adams, and Graciela Iturbide from Mexico. Quintana works solely in black-and-white and uses only available light. She creates dark, rich, masterful photographs with an ageless, classic purity. Collaboration is essential to her process. The images, Quintana insists, would not be possible without her subjects’ willingness to reveal themselves.