Frames from the streets of grace.

• Author: Lyon, David
• Position: Works of Manuel Alvarez Bravo, Mexico's greatest photographer - Includes related article

OVER THE NEXT few years, the United States and Canadian tour of "Revelaciones: The Art of Manuel Alvarez Bravo" will introduce thousands of people to the seminal work of Mexico's greatest photographer. The selection of images stretches over his career of nearly seven decades, but like all retrospectives, it places the artist in the past tense--a terrible mistake with Alvarez Bravo. At 89, he works each day, every day in his studio or on the streets of Mexico City. Images of beauty, wit, human comedy and mythic archetypes still flow from his darkroom. "The work always comes first," he says, adhering to the discipline that allowed him to practice his art while working for many years at other jobs. But despite his dedicated work habits, he agreed to interrupt one day in February to speak with Americas about his new work and his approach to photography.

Born in Mexico City "behind the cathedral, in the place where the temples of ancient Mexican gods must have been built," Alvarez Bravo dwells today in Coyoacan on the south side of the city. From the bustling commercial avenue connecting Coyoacan, with San Angel, his residential street twists and turns its cobbled way up a little hill. At the crest of Calle Espiritu Santo, both adjacent to the human roar of the city and discretely removed from it, Manuel Alvarez Bravo lives and works. He has journeyed across the twentieth century from behind the cathedral to arrive at the street of the holy spirit, recording along the way his personal vision for all to see.

After years of maintaining a darkroom in his home, Alvarez Bravo has spent the last decade working in the airy rooms of a separate adobe building across the street. Around a sunny courtyard that often doubles as an open-air studio, a series of high-ceilinged rooms are filled with props, stacks of graphic art, reference books, posters, and personal memorabilia that are all part of his artistic life. Small desks and comfortable chairs abound, for each room is both a place to work and a sitting room to talk and think. One wing is devoted to the technical side of his work--the laboratory, darkroom and print-mounting equipment.

On this particular day, the photographer's darkroom technicians are making proof prints from his most recent "street" assignment. He explains that while he makes many pictures in the studio these days, he also goes out to photograph spontaneous scenes in the neighborhoods on the south side of Mexico City.

"The most recent one is from the fiestas of the First of the Year, of the Baby Jesus in Coyoacan and San Angel," he says. But he carefully points out that he did not attend to document a social or religious occasion. "I did not take photographs of the fiesta itself, but of the activities going on at the sidelines."

He likens the resulting images to some of his famous early photographs of dancers. He was not interested in capturing the action of dance, but made pictures of the individual dancers in their unscripted, unselfconscious movements.

"I don't go out to take photographs with a plan," he says. "I take the pictures with my eye, not my mind. I respond to what I see and try to find the image in what happens." He shrugs. "Sometimes it goes, sometimes it doesn't."

He makes the process sound almost casual--as if his intuition, judgment and technical virtuosity did not enter into the formula. He is being deliberately ingenuous, knowing well that the photographer trains as long and hard as any athlete for the critical moment when his skills, talent and experience are challenged.

In fact...