Styles / Modernist
Mexican modernist photography
- Sun: the sun, 4.3 m from the face, about 30° to the camera’s left, 265 cm above the eyes.
To scale, from the render’s scene file. One way to get this light, not a record of how any photograph was lit.
Rendered with this plan. Hard sun from the front and side, crisp cast shadows on the neck and the head's shadow drawn on a pale wall just behind.
Render: a synthetic clay head made with MakeHuman, not a person, in Blender Cycles, 85 mm, f/5.6.
Hands of the Puppeteer, Mexico City
Tina Modotti, Hands of the Puppeteer, Mexico City, 1929. Gelatin silver print, 25.2 × 20.2 cm. Minneapolis Institute of Art, Gift of the Patrick and Aimee Butler Family Foundation (85.87). Public domain; image: MIA scan via Wikimedia Commons. Source: Hands of the Puppeteer, Mexico City at Minneapolis Institute of Art
Post-revolutionary Mexico photographed sharp and straight, then turned on its people, its things and its politics: a puppeteer's hands and their shadow in hard sun, a workers' parade seen from above as a field of sombreros, a sickle, bandolier and corncob laid out as a still life, cardboard mannequins smiling over a market stall. Full-scale black-and-white prints from view cameras and a handheld Graflex, made for Mexican Folkways, El Machete and small exhibitions, with an ironic, dreamlike streak that refuses the picturesque.
How the look is made
- Point a sharp, stopped-down camera at everyday Mexican life rather than at views: hands at work, market stalls, toys and tools, sellers and labourers, cropped close until the gesture or the object carries the picture.
- Work in hard sun and draw with the cast shadow: the shadow of a puppeteer's arms on the wall behind his hands, a dark doorway behind sunlit figures, hat brims shading the faces in a march.
- Make a still life argue: lay ordinary popular objects such as a sombrero, a sickle, a bandolier, a corncob or a guitar on a plain ground, and let the combination carry a political or poetic idea; study flowers such as roses, lilies and cacti with the same sharp lens.
- Refuse the picturesque postcard: no soft focus, no costumed folklore, no tourist view. Find irony and strangeness in what is really there, a shop sign, a mannequin, a figure asleep, and give the picture a title that turns its meaning.
- Set the camera on a tripod where something may happen and wait; let people be still, turned away or seen from above rather than performing for the lens.
- Make pictures for the page as well as the wall: series for folklore magazines and the party press, records of the new murals, and each print made straight, from deep black to clean white.
Shoot sheet for your kit
Fill in your camera, lenses and lights, and the sheet says which light plays each part, what to work around and where to start on your camera. Without a kit it starts on a full-frame camera.
Light
Key: the sun, about 45° to the camera’s left, high, hard.
- Key high: about 30–45° above eye level, angled down.
- Shadow edges
- Shadows with crisp outlines, cast by a small or distant light: direct sun, a bare flash, a spotlight.
- Shadow depth
- Dark shadows that still hold some detail (a high lighting ratio, about 4:1 to 8:1: the shadow side two to three stops darker).
- Shape & form
- Shadows thrown away from what casts them (a figure’s long shadow, railings on a wall) that become shapes of their own in the composition.
How the style is lit
- Hard, high sun with crisp cast shadows on walls and pavements, the shadow drawn into the composition (the shadow of a puppeteer's arms on the wall behind his hands).
- Direct sun in streets, doorways and courtyards, figures in light against a dark open door or a barred window.
- Soft daylight from one side in the portrait studio, against a plain wall.
This plan is worked out from the style’s choices, so it is drawn as a schematic. The set-up at the top of the page is the one we rendered, to scale. One way to get the light, not a record of how any photograph was lit.
Lens and settings
Start at
On a full-frame camera: the same depth of field and exposure as the style’s own numbers, in the same light. Then meter and adjust.
- The style’s f/16 on 4 × 5 in gives about the depth of field of f/4.5 on full frame.
- Then
- 35–55 mm · f/8–f/32 · 1/250–1 s on 4 × 5 in, inferred from the gear and the look. View and plate cameras on a tripod and, from 1926, Modotti's handheld Graflex reflex, with normal lenses of about 35–55 mm equivalent; stopped down to f/8–f/32 for sharp, deep prints, from 1/250 s handheld in sun to a second on the tripod. The exposure figures are inferred.
- Focal length
- Roughly the eye’s own perspective; no visible distortion.
- Focus
- Everything sharp from the nearest stone to the horizon.
- Angle
- Looking down on the subject. The camera at the height of a standing person or of the subject.
- Distance
- Within arm’s reach: faces, hands and details fill the frame.
- Balance
- Tilted lines and oblique movement drive the picture.
- Crop & fill
- The edges cut into the subject: heads, limbs or objects run out of frame.
- Depth
- Depth collapsed into pattern and flat shapes.
- Duration
- An unmoving scene, exposed slowly and carefully.
Direct
Do not direct: let workers, sellers and marchers carry on, seen from behind, from above or close on their hands at work. Faces stay composed and unsmiling, eyes on a task, in profile or turned away; two figures stand apart in a doorway, one holding a bowl. A studio sitter is still against a plain wall, head turned three-quarters, eyes off the lens.
- Turn to the camera
- Seen from behind, facing into the scene, so the viewer looks with them.
- Head & gaze
- Attention on what the hands are doing or on a thing (working, reading, eating, playing), not on the camera.
- Arms & hands
- Only hands in the frame, holding, pouring, cutting or offering, with no face. Hands busy with a prop or a tool: flowers, a phone, a cup, a cigarette, an instrument, one’s own work.
- Expression
- Unsmiling, composed and blank: the face gives nothing away.
- The moment
- People photographed as they are, unaware or unconcerned.
Style the set
Nothing is styled: people wear their own work clothes, sombreros and rebozos, or their own festive Isthmus dress (never costume) in real streets, markets and doorways. Studio sitters wear plain dark clothes. Still lifes lay a few popular objects (a sickle, a corncob, a guitar) on a plain ground.
- Clothes
- What people happened to be wearing; nothing chosen for the picture.
- How much is styled
- Nothing dressed, made up, moved or added for the picture.
Finish
- Monochrome
- Rich blacks, clean whites and every grey between.
- Film
- A view camera on a tripod: great detail, slow and deliberate.
- Post-production
- Nothing changed beyond exposure and development.
- Shown as
- Each picture stands on its own.
- Shown in
- Pictures made for magazine pages and spreads.
Stay away from soft focus & diffusion, gum & pigment processes, heavy retouching, painted, scratched or drawn on, glamour & aspiration, costume & dressing-up, theatrical & acted, full glamour make-up and studio props.
Before you shoot it
These photographs show real, often poor and Indigenous Mexicans. The women of Tehuantepec belong to the living Zapotec (Binnizá) communities of the Isthmus, and Señor de Papantla shows a man from a region with a large Totonac population. Even Modotti's portraits of Indigenous mothers and children were reused in the illustrated magazines of the day as emblems of a Mexican identity rooted in Indigenous culture, so these pictures could become types too. Never turn people's dress into costume or a picturesque type. Modotti made much of this work for the Communist Party press, and in 1935 Álvarez Bravo photographed for the Ministry of Public Education's campaign for the 'Socialist School': treat the sickle-and-bandolier still lifes as political statements, not decoration. Only Modotti's photographs (she died in 1942) are in the public domain.
Photographs that define it
From open collections, shown whole with their credits. Later photographs are linked, not shown, while they are in copyright.
Campesinos (Workers' Parade)
Tina Modotti, Campesinos (Workers' Parade), 1926. Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, via Wikimedia Commons. Public domain (PD-US-expired, PD-Mexico). Source: Campesinos (Workers' Parade) at Museum of Fine Arts, Houston (object 149091), via Wikimedia Commons
Two Women from Tehuantepec with jicalpextle (Dos tehuanas con jicalpextle)
Tina Modotti, Two Women from Tehuantepec with jicalpextle (Dos tehuanas con jicalpextle), 1930?. Gelatin silver print, 150 × 212 mm. Museo Nacional de Arte, INBA, Mexico City, via Google Art Project and Wikimedia Commons. Public domain (PD-Mexico, PD-1996). Source: Two Women from Tehuantepec with jicalpextle (Dos tehuanas con jicalpextle) at Museo Nacional de Arte (MUNAL), Mexico City, via Google Art Project and Wikimedia Commons
Portrait of María Marín de Orozco (Portret van María Marín de Orozco)
Tina Modotti, Portrait of María Marín de Orozco, Mexico City, 1925. Gelatin silver print, 215 × 187 mm. Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam, purchased with the support of the Familie W. Cordia/Rijksmuseum Fonds and the Paul Huf Fonds/Rijksmuseum Fonds (RP-F-2014-52). CC0. Source: Portrait of María Marín de Orozco (Portret van María Marín de Orozco) at Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam
In copyright, so linked
- Laughing Mannequins (Maniquís riendo) , Manuel Álvarez Bravo, 1930. Art Institute of Chicago.
With other styles
Pairs with Straight photography. Straight photography supplies the sharp lens and the plain print; keep them, but swap its peppers, shells and cliffs for hands at work, market goods and marches, and let the picture take a side.
The opposite: Surrealist photography. Paris surrealists made the uncanny with solarisation, montage and a black studio ground; the Mexicans mostly found it in daylight on the street, so leave the darkroom tricks out and look for the mannequin, the sign or the sleeper that is really there.
Pairs with New Vision. New Vision supplied the steep views and diagonal crops; borrow its view from above for crowds, wires and stairs, but keep the subject recognisably Mexican and the print a straight, full-scale one.
The opposite: Pictorialism. The Mexican modernists defined themselves against the soft, folkloric pictorialism of postcards and of the photographers around Helios magazine who attacked them; reverse it to find the style: sharp focus, hard sun, no costumed scene.
Pairs with FSA/OWI documentary photography. FSA documentary turned similar sympathy for working people into a government file a few years later; borrow its captions and series when a single committed picture should become a record of conditions.
Pairs with French humanist photography. Álvarez Bravo showed with Cartier-Bresson at the Palacio de Bellas Artes in Mexico City and at Julien Levy in New York in 1935; borrow the street encounter and the unnoticed figure, but keep the tripod, the wait and the full-scale print rather than the 35 mm instant.
The opposite: Fotoclubismo (Escola Paulista). São Paulo's camera club later drew the same hard sun and cast shadows into salon prints for contests and abstraction; here the sharp light falls on workers, markets and marches, and the picture takes a side.
Sources
- Tina Modotti, Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tina_Modotti (1896–1942; to Mexico City with Weston in 1923 and a portrait studio; Rivera's murals at the Secretariat of Public Education 1924–1928; Communist Party 1927; photographs in Mexican Folkways, Forma, El Machete, AIZ and New Masses; Woman of Tehuantepec 1929; solo show at the National Library in December 1929, advertised as the first revolutionary photographic exhibition in Mexico; expelled 1930; collections)
- Fundación MAPFRE, Tina Modotti exhibition texts: https://documentacion.fundacionmapfre.org/documentacion/media/group/1120558.do (portrait studio 1923; Convent of Tepotzotlán and other views whose exact authorship is unknown; still lifes of lilies, geraniums, roses and cacti; portraits of mothers and children later used in illustrated magazines as examples of a Mexican identity grounded in Indigenous culture; murals by Rivera and Orozco; Idols Behind Altars and Mexican Folkways; Weston back to the US in late 1926; a lighter Graflex bought in 1926 to replace the Corona; El Machete; avoided poses, real situations; symbolic still lifes 'Sickle, canana and corn cob' and 'Guitar neck, canana and corn cob'; 1929 manifesto at the Biblioteca Nacional; expelled 1930)
- Manuel Álvarez Bravo, Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manuel_%C3%81lvarez_Bravo (1902–2002; met Modotti 1927; her Mexican Folkways work in 1930; La Tolteca prize 1931 with Rivera on the jury; first solo show at Galería Posada 1932; Señor de Papantla 1934; Breton 1938 and La buena fama durmiendo, rejected by censors; Breton's 1940 surrealist exhibition at Inés Amor's gallery; irony, avoidance of the picturesque; large cameras and detailed prints)
- Jeu de Paume, Manuel Álvarez Bravo. Un photographe aux aguets (1902–2002), teachers' dossier, 2012: https://jeudepaume.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/DossierEnseignants_AlvarezBravo.pdf (early pictorialist work destroyed; 'pure' photography under the influence of Weston and Modotti, closer to Constructivism until 1931; Tríptico cemento-2 / La Tolteca dated 1929, its first prize 1931; Parábola óptica 1931, presented reversed from 1945 on; Arena y pinitos, c. 1926; Obrero en huelga, asesinado, Tehuantepec 1934, published in Frente a Frente 1936; shown with Cartier-Bresson at the Palacio de Bellas Artes in March 1935 and with Cartier-Bresson and Walker Evans in Documentary and Anti-Graphic Photographs at Julien Levy, 23 April–7 May 1935; tripod-and-wait method; Breton in Minotaure 1939; 1940 surrealist exhibition at the Galería de Arte Mexicano; Rivera: 'anguish is omnipresent and the atmosphere is supersaturated with irony'; 1935 work for the Ministry of Public Education's publications office, for the 'propaganda of the introduction of the Socialist School')
- Agustín Jiménez, Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agust%C3%ADn_Jim%C3%A9nez (1901–1974; with Álvarez Bravo a protagonist of the late-1920s and 1930s avant-garde; official photographer of the National School of Fine Arts; break from romantic pictorialism; everyday objects, shadows, reflections, geometric patterns, complex framing; Córdova, Agustín Jiménez y la vanguardia fotográfica mexicana, 2004)
- Fundación Larivière, Agustín Jiménez: https://www.fundacionlariviere.org/en/519-jimenez-agustin (official photographer of the National School of Fine Arts from 1926; second prize at La Tolteca 1931; Excélsior, Revista de Revistas, Mexican Life)
- Aurora Eugenia Latapí, Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aurora_Eugenia_Latap%C3%AD (1911–2000; La Tolteca contest 1931, jury with Rivera, winners Manuel Álvarez Bravo, Agustín Jiménez, Lola Álvarez Bravo, and Latapí in fourth place with Chalchiuhtlanetzin; Mazorcas, Obrero and Trompos, 1931; Helios criticised the jury; Jiménez–Latapí exhibition of 50 pictures at Galería Excélsior, November 1931, accused by Helios of imitating Weston and Modotti)
- New Orleans Museum of Art, Object Lesson: Photographers Tina Modotti and Lola Alvarez Bravo and Mexican Modernism: https://noma.org/object-lesson-photographers-tina-modotti-and-lola-alvarez-bravo-and-mexican-modernism/ (Modotti's 'romantic' first years and 'revolutionary' period 1926–1929 in Álvarez Bravo's words; the Graflex as a handheld camera without tripod, later sold to Lola Álvarez Bravo; Lola Álvarez Bravo's crisp light and shadow, editorial work, and photo-collages of the mid-century)
- Art Institute of Chicago, collection records: https://www.artic.edu/artworks/120096 (Modotti, Interior of Church, Tepotzotlán, 1924, platinum print, made on a Holy Week visit in April 1924), https://www.artic.edu/artworks/92150 (Álvarez Bravo, Laughing Mannequins, 1930, gelatin silver print, 1988.157.8, Julien Levy Collection; cardboard mannequins at an open-air market in Mexico City; in Julien Levy's April 1935 show), https://www.artic.edu/artworks/48888 (Parábola óptica, 1931, printed later), https://www.artic.edu/artworks/48894 (Striking Worker Murdered, 1934, printed 1974), https://www.artic.edu/artworks/63465 (Señor de Papantla, 1934, printed 1977), https://www.artic.edu/artworks/48919 (La buena fama durmiendo, 1938)
- SFMOMA, Parábola óptica: https://www.sfmoma.org/artwork/2012.318/ (1931, printed 1970s; © Colette Urbajtel / Asociación Manuel Álvarez Bravo)
- Minneapolis Institute of Art, Hands of the Puppeteer, Mexico City: https://collections.artsmia.org/art/3366/hands-of-the-puppeteer-mexico-city-tina-modotti (1929, gelatin silver print, 85.87; rights type 'Public Domain', with the 'restricted' flag set in the record data), and the same scan on Wikimedia Commons: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Modotti_HandsOfThePuppeteer_MIA_8587.jpg (PD-Old-70)
- Instituto Valenciano de Arte Moderno (IVAM), Centre Julio González, Valencia, exhibition 'Modern Photography in Mexico, 1923–1940', 29 January–17 May 1998, as listed in the exhibition history of AIC 92150 (https://api.artic.edu/api/v1/artworks/92150): the period of this entry
- SFMOMA, Maniquís riendo (Laughing mannequins): https://www.sfmoma.org/artwork/2015.724/ (1930, gelatin silver print, 18.5 × 24.4 cm; © Colette Urbajtel / Asociación Manuel Álvarez Bravo)
- Phillips, Tina Modotti, Roses, Mexico: https://www.phillips.com/detail/tina-modotti/126650 (1924, platinum or palladium print; 'her most accomplished still life'), and Telephone Wires, Mexico: https://www.phillips.com/detail/tina-modotti/126651 (1925, palladium print; early prints at the Museum of Modern Art, New York, and the Baltimore Museum of Art)
- Lola Álvarez Bravo, Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lola_%C3%81lvarez_Bravo (1903–1993; staff and later chief photographer of the pedagogical magazine El Maestro Rural; Un descanso, llanto e indiferencia, 1940; Surrealist collages shown in 1935 and photomontages from 1936)
- Amon Carter Museum of American Art, Señor de Papantla: https://cartermuseum.org/collection/man-papantla-p1979971 (1934–1935, printed 1977; 'a man from a rural region with a large population of Totonac people')
- Isthmus Zapotec, Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isthmus_Zapotec (spoken in Tehuantepec and Juchitán, Oaxaca), and World Literature Today: https://worldliteraturetoday.org/node/179 ('The Binnizá or "People of the Cloud" live in the state of Oaxaca near the Pacific coast')
- 'Object Lesson: Photographers Tina Modotti and Lola Alvarez Bravo and Mexican Modernism', New Orleans Museum of Art: https://noma.org/object-lesson-photographers-tina-modotti-and-lola-alvarez-bravo-and-mexican-modernism/ (about 1926 Modotti 'acquired a Graflex camera, a lighter hand-held model'; it let her work 'without the obtrusiveness of a tripod'; she sold it to Lola Álvarez Bravo around 1930)
- Fundación MAPFRE, Tina Modotti exhibition texts: https://documentacion.fundacionmapfre.org/documentacion/media/group/1120558.do (a lighter Graflex bought in 1926 replaced the Corona camera)
- Jeu de Paume, Manuel Álvarez Bravo. Un photographe aux aguets, teachers' dossier, 2012: https://jeudepaume.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/DossierEnseignants_AlvarezBravo.pdf (Álvarez Bravo set the camera on a tripod where something might happen and waited)
