history and myth, and exposes the lies of such
officialist renditions of yesterday and today.
Weekly magazines had provided photographers a
place to publish during the first ‘‘Golden Age’’ of
Mexican graphic reportage from the end of the 1930s
to the mid-1950s, but during the 1970s, a second
flowering occurred, as that role was taken over by
daily newspapers. In 1977, Manual Becerra Acosta
led a movement to create a cooperative newspaper,
and, to this day,Uno ma ́sunodescribes itself as ‘‘The
pioneer of graphic journalism in Mexico.’’ In that
daily, young photographers were given great lati-
tude, and visual experimentation took precedence
over the usually monotonous task of ‘‘covering’’
events. The respect given photojournalism was even
more pronounced inLa Jornada, the newspaper
founded in 1984 by dissidents who leftUno ma ́s
uno. From its very inception,La Jornadawas con-
ceived as a graphic medium: the artist Vicente Rojo
designed the daily’s format to include an image on
every page, whether a photograph or a cartoon.
The new generation of photojournalists have pub-
lished their work and earned their daily bread inUno
ma ́s unoandLa Jornada: Pedro Valtierra, Elsa Med-
ina, Marco Antonio Cruz, Francisco Mata Rosas,
Fabrizio Leo ́n, Andre ́s Garay, Rau ́lOrtega,Guil-
lermo Castrejo ́n, Eniac Martı ́nez, Frida Hartz, Jorge
Acevedo, Rube ́n Pax, Luis Humberto Gonza ́lez,
Angeles Torrejo ́n, Christa Cowrie, Jose ́ Antonio
Lo ́pez, Aaron Sanche ́z, and Daniel Mendoza, to
mention only some. Far from believing in the objec-
tivity which prior graphic reporters such as Agustı ́n
Casasola or Enrique Dı ́az employed as a smoke-
screen to dissimulate the services they provided to
the state appartus, and fundamentally opposed to
the use of photographs as either filler or simple
illustration, some members of the New Photojourn-
alism summed up their position in a statement that
accompanied a 1988 exhibit of their work:
A new generation of image creators now exists that
recognizes the ideological, cultural, and symbolic char-
acter of their work; who obviously maintain the premise
of their duty to inform, but without pretending to be a
‘‘faithful’’ register of reality....They are conscious that
what they transmit is their point of view, opinions, and
the position they assume in front of the events they see
day after day.The New Photojournalists have treated represen-
tatives of the State in ways to which they are little
accustomed. For example, Marco Antonio Cruz
ironically recast props of official symbolism in the
photograph he made of President Miguel de la
Madrid against a painted backdrop during a 1984
political meeting. In what must surely be the first
critical image of a president in office, De la Madrid
appears at the very bottom of the photo, with a
huge black cloud over his head on which is written
‘‘UNEMPLOYMENT,’’ and from which a light-
ening bolt comes that is aimed directly at him. In
another image characteristic of the New Photo-
journalists, Andre ́s Garay photographed in 1984
the then all-powerful leader of the oil workers,
Joaquı ́n Herna ́ndez Galicia, seated at a table
behind bottles of rum and brandy, which dominate
the foreground. Though the image nearly cost
Garay a beating, and it required great finesse to
secretly carry the film from the banquet, the photo
is a faithful representation of the new generation’s
work. Fabrizio Leo ́n produced an acidic commen-
tary on the Mexican electoral process in 1988 when
he pilloried Miguel Bartlett, then President of the
Federal Election Commission and architect of the
fraud that gave the presidency to Carlos Salinas, by
photographing his haughtiness through the smoke
of his cigarette. The Chiapas Rebellion of 1994
provided the New Photojournalists with much fod-
der, and the 1998 photo by Pedro Valtierra of the
combat between Indian women and soldiers is the
most famous picture to come out of that struggle.
In Valtierra’s image, the Indians rise up against the
impositions to which they have been subject in
reality and, as well, in the systems of representation
with which the State has legitimized itself. They
push back, and seem to be winning the age-old
struggle to define their culture in ways that differ
sharply from the picturesque terms in which they
have too often been depicted.
Political critique is innovative in the Mexican
context, but the most unique element of the New
Photojournalism is the development of a documen-
tary form within a newspaper format. This has
resulted from the newpapers’ emphasis on picturing
daily life activities, which allows photographers to
publish images that have no relation whatsoever to
‘‘news.’’ Thus, photojournalists can follow their
own personal interests, confident that they will
have a space to publish if their pictures are estheti-
cally interesting. This freedom has also allowed the
New Photojournalists to explore alternative venues
for their images, such as books, magazines, exhibits,
and posters, with the result that many—including
Francisco Mata Rosas, Guillermo Castrejo ́n, Eniac
Martı ́nez, and Marco Antonio Cruz—have under-
taken extended documentary projects. Finally, the
incorporation of women has been an important
force in transforming a guild and a photographic
genre, usually dominated by men.
Documentary photography that is not photo-
journalism has had a long history in Mexico, andMEXICO, PHOTOGRAPHY IN