“You gotta love it,” says 65-year-old Bill Delaney, beauty salesman in the greater Los Angeles area. Yes, you gotta love it. You gotta love the hustle, the getting-up-and-going-out, the repeating sales pitches, the flirting and the haggling; the unending calls, all week, Monday to Sunday, all day, morning till night. You gotta love the dance, the rush, and the territory.
In 1980, as a young photographer just beginning her MFA in San Francisco and developing a keen interest in documenting labour, 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, carrying and chatting, a restless, pulsing energy streaming from Delaney’s photographs. Picturing the beauty parlours 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 harsh flash, Delaney created a witty documentation of a day in the life of a salesman. Despite the photo-novella humour, Delaney came to see her father’s work in a new light. All the tough business dealings, all the missed dinners and the Saturday meetings became a testament to his efforts to provide for his children what he himself had not received. The story, ultimately, became a testament to his love.
Yes, you gotta love it—as it is a true labour of love.
