I first came across Graciela Iturbide's work just a few days ago when Faded & Blurred member Kacey Jurgens commented that one of my photos in the F&B365 pool reminded her of Graciela Iturbide's “Mujer Angel” (below). I was very curious so I did a Google search. I was fascinated by her work. Her photography is so powerful, that I started digging deeper to find out more about her.
Iturbide is known for portraying stigmatized ethnic groups and her focus on feminism. Her focus on feminism strongly influenced her work taken in the city of Juchitan, Oaxaca. This is a matriarchal society. Women are in charge economically, politically, and spiritually. She became somewhat of an anthropological photographer in order to get the pictures she wanted. She entrenched herself in the culture... became a part of them. She said, "They adopted me in a way. They let me take my pictures and let me know about the various fiestas. I would go on pilgrimages with them....It wasn't only that they gave me permission to take photographs, they also suggested themes and showed me things. I discovered the Zapotec people through their eyes, and through my own at the same time."
She has won the W. Eugene Smith prize for photography in 1987, a Guggenheim Fellowship in 1988, and, in 2008, she received the Hasselblad Foundation Photography Award.
The Hasselblad Foundation said this about her work:
"Graciela Iturbide is considered one of the most important and influential Latin American photographers of the past four decades. Her photography is of the highest visual strength and beauty. Graciela Iturbide has developed a photographic style based on her strong interest in culture, ritual and everyday life in her native Mexico and other countries. Iturbide has extended the concept of documentary photography, to explore the relationships between man and nature, the individual and the cultural, the real and the psychological. She continues to inspire a younger generation of photographers in Latin America and beyond."
Iturbide says she looks for “surprise in ordinary things that I could have found anywhere in the world. The unconscious obsession that we photographers have is that wherever we go we want to find the theme that we carry inside ourselves.”
I think as photographers, this is what many of us look for... surprise in ordinary things. I know that is what I love about her work. The subject matter is often nothing extraordinary - and yet the impact of her images is both evocative and profound. People in their environment, in their culture, being who and what they are, no pretense involved. I would love to be able to simply live in the moment with my camera, only to discover the images after. A big thanks to Kacey for introducing me to this inspirational photographer.
