Mexico City, September 19, 1985 The Regis Hotel in downtown after the earthquake of 1985. The hotel was close to the store my father owned years earlier, when he gave me my first camera. Not only did the hotel collapse, but so did stores, restaurants, and cabarets halls nearby, as well as the Salinas y Rocha building. You can see the Torre Latinoamericano in the background. © Enrique Metinides, Courtesy 212berlin

Chapultepec Park, Mexico City, 1995 A young woman cries as she sits next to her boyfriend, who had been killed in a robbery that went badly wrong. He looks like he is asleep. © Enrique Metinides, Courtesy 212berlin

Mexico City, April 29, 1979 Adela Legarreta Rivas was a Mexican journalist. She had a press conference later that day where she was presenting her latest book. She had been to the beauty parlor that morning where she had her hair and nails done. On the way from the beauty parlor to her home, she was killed, hit by a white Datsun on Avenida Chapultepec. This photograph was not the one published the next day in the papers. Often the photographs that later went on to become important were not those chosen by the editors for the paper. © Enrique Metinides, Courtesy 212berlin

Polanco, Mexico City, August 9, 1967 I saw these kids, who were North Americans, having fun in the midst of this natural disaster. They were car surfing in a sudden flash flood on the corner of Horacio and Presidente Masaryk! When they saw me taking photographs they turned and waved! © Enrique Metinides, Courtesy 212berlin

Extract from La Prensa, May 25, 1969 “Hundreds of people gather to look at an overturned bus, which fell into the San Esteban river after its breaks failed on the route between Mexico City and Huixquilucan. Inside were 23 screaming children. When they turned the bus over, they discovered the body of a dead child, who had fallen through an open window.” © Enrique Metinides, Courtesy 212berlin

Highway to Querretoro, September 1967 Red Cross workers take a young woman, who was on her way to a party, from the scene of a crash. © Enrique Metinides, Courtesy 212berlin

Colonia Doctores, Niños heroes, Mexico City, 1966 This woman did not have money to buy a coffin for her child, who had been killed when a bus ran over him. She went to a coffin shop near the hospital and started praying and begging, crying for help. After some time, she was surrounded by people, who asked what happened. Together, they each gave a little bit of money to help her out. With that and a discount from the coffin- maker, she was able to buy a coffin and bury her child with some dignity. She had to walk nine kilometers with the coffin to her home. © Enrique Metinides, Courtesy 212berlin

Lake Xochimilco, Mexico City, 1960 Someone dumped the body of a murdered man in the canal in Xochimilco. The life guard, attached to a cord for his own safety, swam out to the body. On the opposite bank you can see all the onlookers reflected in the water. I call this photograph, detective photography with art! © Enrique Metinides, Courtesy 212berlin

Mexico City, 1977 Bertha Ibarra García, while walking through Chapultapec Park, asked a policeman to show her the oldest tree. Later that day, the same policeman found her hanging there and told me what had happened. We found a note in her bag that said today was her daughter’s quinceañera (15th birthday). Her daughter had been taken from her when she was just nine years old and she had wanted to go to the party to see her, but the father and her lover did not let her. Also in her bag was a photograph of her daughter when she was nine years old. © Enrique Metinides, Courtesy 212berlin

Mexico City, May 25, 1971 I was high up in the building opposite when I took this sequence of photographs. I was in a dangerous spot. I’ve had many accidents, nineteen in total: seven broken ribs, one heart attack, broken fingers. I fell into many ditches, but I always managed to take my action photographs. With this story, La Prensa ran, "'I wanted to know what death was like,' said Antonio N., 45 years old, after two rescue workers persuaded him not to jump. The man had no work and a lot of worries." © Enrique Metinides, Courtesy 212berlin