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A photographer has the skill to capture a moment and transform it into something physical. Graciela Iturbide has always been aware of this, deciding to study cinema at the National School of Film Arts in Mexico. There, she discovered her true passion: photography.
Alongside Manuel Álvarez Bravo, Iturbide traveled to various locations in Mexico and Latin America, documenting the lives of people in small towns like Juchitán de Zaragoza, in Oaxaca, and Sonora.
Her work has resulted in international recognition, it’s been exposed at the Centre Pompidou, in Paris, at the Museum of Modern Art in San Francisco, the Museum of Art in Philadelphia, and much more.
Iturbide has made black and whites one of her distinct staples. She dedicates a lot of her work to death, a very Mexican tendency, involving images of cementeries, and more to her art.
Photography is a ritual to me. Going out with my camera, observing, photogtraphing the most mythical aspects of people, then heading into the dark, and developing and selecting the most symbolic of these images.“
That’s how Iturbide describes photography, elevating the stuff of every day life into art. Her work has been recognized by the Eugene Smith Memorial Foundation in 1987, by the Prix de la Photographie in Paris in 1988, and the Great International Prize of the Museum of Photography in Hokkaido, in 1990. Most recently, she received the Hasselblad Award in 2008, recognitions that have cemented her a reference for all generations.
Iturbe, 81 years old, was also involved in the book of Her Dior. The compendium gathered nearly 160 images captured by her and her generation of photographers, including Fabiola Zamora, Maya Goded, and Tania Franco Klein.