So the story goes like this:  E.J. Bellocq was born in 1873 and died in 1949.  When the people who clean up after dead people were cleaning up his place they found 89 glass plate negatives of portraits of prostitutes from the sweet-old-anything-goes red light district of New Orleans called Storyville all taken around 1912.  Lee Friedlander salvaged the work, printed it through the traditional processes of the time and promoted it.  No one really knows much about E.J. Bellocq and luckily for us these amazing portraits were preserved.  Perhaps one’s life purpose is unclear until 45 years after you die people find your prostitute photos.  Could happen to any of us!    Enjoy.

In all earnestness I completely love these photographs as a voyeuristic view into an otherwise unseen world.  There are books of the work and the Lee Friedlander prints can be seen at the Fraenkel Gallery in S.F. The above text was basically paraphrased from their site, so thanks!