Graciela Iturbide (b. 1942) began photographing Mexico and its people while working as assistant to the renowned Mexican photographer, Manuel Alvarez Bravo. The powerful quality of her work ensured that Iturbide herself soon emerged as one of Latin America's foremost photographers. Her images are poetic documents that have as their themes, rite and ceremony, the interaction of nature and culture, and the tensions between tradition, modernity and identity. She has won, among other major accolades, the Eugene Smith Award (1987) and a Guggenheim Fellowship (1988) for her work.