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Law and disorder: the grisly lens of Enrique Metinides in pictures | Art and design

Law and disorder: the grisly lens of Enrique Metinides – in pictures

As a child, Enrique Metinides photographed the bloody crime scenes of Mexico City – leading to a lifetime of ambulance chasing and macabre images

@mlestone Main image: Disaster scenes … Mexico City suicide attempt, 25 May 1971 Photograph: Courtesy of Michael Hoppen Gallery/Enrique Metinides

Mon 13 Feb 2017 02.00 EST Last modified on Wed 19 Oct 2022 10.21 EDT

  • Untitled arrest, c1952

    Until his retirement in 1978, Enrique Metinides photographed the death, destruction and hijinks of everyday life in Mexico City. An exhibition of his work is at Michael Hoppen Gallery, London, until 24 March. A screening of a documentary about Metinides, The Man Who Saw Too Much, is on 18 February. All photographs: Enrique Metinides/courtesy of Michael Hoppen Gallery

  • Mexico City, 1950s

    Born in 1934, Metinides started photography when his father gave him a Box Brownie camera as a child. He started by taking pictures of crashed cars

  • Lake Xochimilco, Mexico City, 1960

    His father ran a restaurant, and the young Metinides got to know the policemen who came in to eat there. He would ride along with them, taking photos of crime scenes

  • Polanco, Mexico City, August 9, 1967

    His first image appeared in a newspaper when he was 12. He was hired by the newspaper La Prensa as an unpaid 13-year-old, getting the nickname El Niño (‘the boy’)

  • Mexico City, 1958

    Metinides volunteered with the Red Cross, and rode with their ambulance crews to accident scenes. Here, a high-voltage cable has hit a man walking in the street. Despite being badly electrocuted, he survived

  • State of Mexico, 1963

    Here, a woman discovers the body of her murdered husband. As the Guardian’s Sean O’Hagan says, ‘his photographs become more disturbing as he becomes a better photographer’

  • Tacubaya, Mexico City, 1967

    This petrol station that caught fire after four customers drove off before the attendant finished pumping their petrol. One firefighter died

  • Mexico City (VW burning), 1951

    Metinides has said that he saw ‘30, 40, 50 corpses a day’ while working as a crime scene photographer

  • Mexico City suicide attempt, May 25, 1971

    Metinides has been compared to Weegee, the American ‘ambulance-chaser’ photographer. ‘Weegee had a police radio in his car. I was the first photographer in Mexico to do the same,’ he told Vice. ‘As soon as the police were informed of a crime I would know exactly where it was and would even get there before them … I would photograph the house, the weapon, the witnesses, the onlookers, the photographs of the victims when they were alive … everything. I actually used to give my photographs to the police to conduct their investigations’

  • Highway to Queretaro, September 1969

    ‘On one occasion, I photographed all the onlookers at a murder scene and it later turned out that in one of the photographs I had captured the murderer, who was also the victim’s best friend and had claimed to be out of town on the day of the homicide. He was in the picture looking at the crime scene, but when they had interrogated him he swore he had been out of town visiting friends’

  • Mexico City, 1974

    Three Americans crash their convertible into a fountain. They only suffered light injuries, but accused the police of stealing their gold watches and jewellery. Metinides’ photographs proved their accusation was false

  • Untitled, c1950 (car wreckage)

    Metinides was caught up in various shootouts between criminals and police. At one, the officer stood next to him was shot in the stomach

  • Mexico City, 1968

    A plane crash after a pilot landed in a river in order to avoid hitting a residential area. Metinides went on to make celebrated colour images too, which have a surreal, almost composed quality

  • Mexico City, 1972

    Metinides was eventually ousted from his position at La Prensa, and stopped photojournalism altogether. However, he does still create his own disaster scenes from his collection of miniature firemen and vehicles
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Jenniffer Sheldon

Update: 2024-03-30

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