"I was inspired by Irving Penn's classic portraits of native people, taken in front of seamless backgrounds. Although I usually include the background, it's always secondary. These pictures are portraits of individuals, not representatives of some exotic group."

The square portraits are made with a Hasselblad 6x6cm single-lens reflex and a 50mm or 80mm lens; the panoramas with a V-Pan 6x17-cm view camera (custom made in St. Louis, Missouri, by Chet Hanchett) and a 90mm, 120mm, or 210mm lens. Borges uses 120-format KODAK TRI-X Pan Professional Film for most of his work.

When shooting in particularly harsh lighting he switches to KODAK PROFESSIONAL T-MAX Black-and-White Film T400 CN. To emphasize the distinction between subject and background, he selectively tones the prints with KODAK Sepia Toner.