Iturbide

I was just rereading an interview with Graciela Iturbide in Conversations with Contemporary Photographers. Although I a had read the piece several years ago countless times (I was working as the art director for the publisher who put out the English version), I had never taken the time to look into her work. Her approach to photography is singularly mystical in a way that seems to escape cliche. This is especially impressive because much of the work that brought her fame was taken in the indigenous areas of Mexico. With the democratization of photography, the tropes of travel photograph have become so familiar as to border on the nauseating. Yet somehow, perhaps because of her dedication to spending a great deal of time with her subjects and immersing herself in the culture (I believe she spent close to six years working on the Zapotec series), and her acute awareness of the aforementioned pitfall, she has created some very timeless images.