‘Eye Am’: The faces of the muster zone
Portraits of immigrant work force now on display
BY PAT HALSEY
Correspondent

Three times a week, Paul Guba left his Highlands home at 4 a.m. to set up his photographic equipment in a gathering hall for day laborers in Freehold, letting his subjects get comfortable with him before he invited them to sit for the camera.

The images he captured are on exhibit in “Eye Am,” Guba’s photographic story of the Hispanic day laborers who daily wait at the Freehold muster zone. The free exhibit runs through April 2 at the Monmouth Beach Cultural Center. Proceeds from the sale of the photos or donations will benefit Casa Freehold, a community group that advocates for the day laborers.

Guba’s portraits of the individual men are intimate, engaging, sharply felt, and beautifully rendered.

When asked what inspired him to do this project, Guba answered that in part it was the renderings of rural Americans in the Works Progress Administration (WPA) essays of the 1930s.

“But the show’s identity and spirit also derive from the civil rights movement of the decades that followed,” added Guba, a commercial photographer.

“I wanted to entice my audience to pause long enough to comprehend the day workers as individuals. Then, once the individuality of the subject is made manifest, his humanity becomes difficult to deny. The observer is obliged to recognize it. Some seeds of respect and compassion are sown.

“I went out there, a giant white guy among Spanish-speaking Mexican men, and through their graciousness, was accepted by them. At first they were a little suspicious, and conversations were short. I speak no Spanish; they, little English. I started sitting in on their English classes, being part of their group. You show up there, and you’re part of it.

“ ‘Sit down with us. We don’t know what to think of you,’ they seemed to say, ‘but have a cup of coffee.’ ”

“Inviting them to pose for a photograph is an intimate thing,” he explained, “and trust was needed.”

Guba set up a makeshift studio at the Second Baptist Church on Throckmorton Street, shooting digitally so that immediately he was able to pull up the image on the screen. His subjects could see themselves, and some of their reserve melted away.

CHRIS KELLY staff Photographer Paul Guba (r), of Highlands, points out several photos of interest at his exhibit at Monmouth Beach Cultural Center. The show will run through April 2.

There was camaraderie and joking, and peer pressure to get their pictures taken.

This is how it was when Antonio stood in his New York Yankees jacket, all roundness and beaming smiles. And when Eduardo, faced sideways to the camera with arms folded, then cut his eyes back to where his friends were standing, and in spite of himself, smiled.

The photos are so immediate, so clearly the work of an artist who has affection and respect for his subjects.

(The next day, Guba would bring a 5-by-7-inch photo they could send home to their wives).

“They’re tremendously courageous,” he said of the immigrant men. “They come here with little or nothing. Don’t speak the language. They believe in America and what it has to offer. There’s a willingness to learn. When the English lessons start, they’re all business. Traits I see in them are all the things I was taught to respect, all the things you’d want in a neighbor. These are the cream of the crop, have the most get-up-and-go; if not, they’d still be back in Mexico.”

Guba studied his craft at nearby Brookdale Community College in the Lincroft section of Middletown, at Rochester (N.Y.) Institute of Technology and at New York City’s School of Visual Arts. More information on his work can be found at www.gubavision.com.

The Monmouth Beach Cultural Center is located at 128 Ocean Ave. Hours are Wednesday-Saturday, 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Admission is free. Prints of Guba’s work will be for sale and donations will benefit Casa Freehold’s educational programs.

“No donation is too small,” Guba said. “These people need books, computers, permanent office space, expendables. The work is donated by the people. They are fearless.”