Too Many Products Too Much Pressure Janet Delaney

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, carrying and chatting, a restless, pulsing energy streaming from Delaney’s photographs. Picturing the 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 harsh flash, Delaney created a witty documentation of a 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 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.

Janet Delaney is an American photographer known for her poignant documentation of the intersection of work, home, and shifting cityscapes. Supported by research and interviews, her projects reflect a deep engagement with the passage of time and photography's role as a historical record. Delaney gained recognition for her South of Market series, chronicling 1980's San Francisco gentrification. Her later projects, Public Matters and Red Eye to New York, captured civic life and street scenes in San Francisco and New York during the 1980s.

"Life of a Salesman" essay by the artist Janet Delaney. "Wife of a Salesman" essay by the artist's mother, Connie Delaney.

- Hardcover with open spine
- 112 pages, 8.25 x 10.25 inches
- Full color offset