Cambridge, MA, Estados Unidos : MIT Press, c1982.

149 p. : il. ; 28 cm.

Tomado del prefacio: "From that day in the spring of 1971 when I first chance upon a group of itinerant photographers working with their old-fashioned cameras and painted backdrops in a Guatemalan marketplace I have been fascinated by their world and the images that pass before their lenses. I am especially intrigued by the intensity with which Indians from highland villages react to being photographed in the manner of the itinerants. Their almost trancelike expressions, so reminiscent of the formal portraiture found on tintypes and daguerrotypes, clearly show that for them the camera still retains much of the powerful magic it had in its earliest years. In our society, where it is not uncommon for people to be photographed hunderds of times, the psychological impact of facing a camera is greatly diminished. Many of the people show in this book were sitting in front of a camera for the first and perhaps only time. The casual snapshot plays no part in their existence, and the rarity of coming before a lens is reflected in the portraits. Even such softening details as the backdrops, the props, or the informality of a child's gesture seem to heighten rather than destroy the basic mood." --

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