Enrique Metinides is a Mexican photographer who documented the grislier side of life in Mexico City. He has often been referred to as the “Mexican Weegee” because of the dark subject matter and intimate access to police sites. But this label, while accurate in some ways, seems to fall short of this mans legendary documents. His compositions are well considered which make the images conflicting.
As the viewer sees a dead beautiful blonde woman among city bystanders or a man walk past the smoldering remains of a hotel they may feel shock and beauty simultaneously; they are horrid but Metinides captures these moments with extreme beauty and evocative narrative frames.
Metinides often takes his images along with the first responders; the images not only photograph the crimes but often bystanders and police directly interacting with the corpses or crime in action. This broad relationship tells a fascinating and haunting story, these images are a crucial and fascinating document of Mexican crime and death in the 20th century. —Cole Tracy