[Photo: Old Man From Juarez, Mexico, 1975. Click on image to enlarge. Copyright 2007 Jesús Manuel Mena Garza. All rights reserved.]
Some documentary photographers treat their subjects like quarry in the jungle. They stalk them, take their shot and then hang their desiccated representation on a distant sterile wall. The jungle can be the Amazon or the streets of a barrio, it is all the same to them.
As outsiders, their images lack any humanity and show a disdain for their subjects. At the photography reception, the shooter can be seen prancing around, weaving fanciful tales of his adventures to the spellbound audience.
The assembled, saturated by the stench of privilege, sip on wine. Esoteric rhythms waft in the background. The photographs remain mute. Surrounded, the captured photographs witness the decadence.
Jesús Manuel Mena Garza
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