LENS OF RITUAL & REVELATION.

• Author: Snow, K. Mitchell
• Position: Photographer Graciela Iturbide

Even without the crown of live iguanas encircling her head, the vendor of Juchitan captured by the lens of Graciela Iturbide makes for a memorable portrait. Her features radiate the kind of serene self-confidence that distinguishes an unforgettable personality; the low angle of the photograph emphasizing the monumental aspects of her character. It was the iguanas, however, that captured the gaze of everyone who saw the image and transformed a provincial saleswoman into a photographic icon. Even before Our Lady of the Iguanas appeared on the cover of Juchitan de las mujeres in 1987, Iturbide's photograph had begun to exercise its fascinating spell.

The saleswoman from Juchitan shows up dozens of times in books and articles on Latin American photography. She's appeared on a best-selling postcard. And a copy of the still photograph even played a pivotal role in the movie Female Perversion. Much to her delight, Iturbide also found her image incorporated into a household altar she discovered while visiting Los Angeles, California.

"I love it when my images take on a life of their own," she says. Iturbide has encountered many such striking manifestations of Mexico's varied cultural heritage while working with its indigenous popular. ion. Sponsorship for some of her earliest professional work came from the National Indigenous Institute.

And now, many of Iturbide's most memorable images are showcased in a major exhibition touring the United States. Originating at the Philadelphia Museum of Art, Images of the Spirit: Photographs by Graciela Iturbide is the first retrospective of her work in this country and is scheduled to travel to five cities over the next two years. Featured are some one hundred gelatin silver prints and nearly two dozen large photographic murals.

Iturbide captured her most famous photograph on her first visit to Juchitan, a Zapotec community located in the isthmus of Tehuantepec, in 1979. Artist Francisco Toledo, a native of the area, gave the photographer some of his etchings to sell in Mexico City to help underwrite the costs of the visit.

Her trip to Juchitan not only resulted in a body of memorable images, but it also helped her solidify her purpose as an artist. She sums up her life's work with a straightforward formula: "traveling to the villages, photographing their daily life, their rites; it is always the same."

While she was living and working in Juchitan, Iturbide worked to overcome some of the barriers that have often separated photographers from their subjects. She got to know the inhabitants and gained a degree of comfort in the community before she began taking photographs, which she describes as a somewhat aggressive act. She generally asks for the cooperation of potential subjects before she sets to work. "I feel that photography involves a complicity between the person being photographed and the photographer," she explains.

The intriguing bits of detail she occasionally offers about her images--to keep the live lizards atop her head from biting, the vendor sewed their mouths shut--illustrate the depth of her interaction with the people of Juchitan. "I hope that they realize that there is someone who respects them behind the...