Pedro Valtierra will receive the Benítez Tribute from the FIL Guadalajara

For his outstanding work as a photographer, both in the journalistic and documentary fields, his promotion of several generations of photographers from Mexico and Latin America through his agency and magazine Cuartoscuro, in addition to his firm work for the conservation of the photographic memory of our country, Pedro Valtierra will receive the Fernando Benítez National Cultural Journalism Tribute 2022, which is awarded each year by the Guadalajara International Book Fair (FIL). Valtierra, born in Fresnillo, Zacatecas, in 1955, is the fourth photographer recognized with the Benítez. The tribute will take place on Sunday, December 4, during the last day of activities of the 36th edition of the FIL Guadalajara.

“I feel privileged, first of all, to be a photographer, and privileged to be where I have been. And grateful because people allow themselves to be photographed, and with those who have allowed me to publish my photos, as well as with those who also recognize them”, declares the Mexican photographer in a telephone interview. He assures that, upon receiving the news of this tribute, he could not believe it: “I was moved not only because I consider FIL Guadalajara one of the most important book fairs, but also because of the name of the character and all the people who have been before as honorees.”

Before Valtierra, only three photographers have obtained the Fernando Benítez National Cultural Journalism Tribute: Héctor García, Rogelio Cuéllar and Graciela Iturbide. In this regard, the director of the agency and the Cuartoscuro magazine declares that the work of these lens professionals influenced his training and that he could not be “more grateful for receiving recognition along with these characters. And more than grateful, I’m nervous, because recognition and awards —although you have to enjoy them— are an obligation to produce and not to believe it too much”.

Valtierra explains that the changes with new technologies have taken place very quickly and that these have had an impact on young photographers, but she trusts that the new generations will make “the best use of social networks, of the Internet”, and recommends “ always give content with ethics, with principles, and always try to be good photographers, creators of good images. May technology and the ease of making images not defeat us”. He adds that “Mexicans have a great sensitivity for the creation of the image.”

For the photographer from Zacatecas, the agency and Cuartoscuro magazine “are my life, my passion, my great project,” and he says he feels “very happy and proud” to lead, for 36 years, “an agency that provides photographic services to media throughout the country, and a magazine that seeks to promote photography, to good Mexican photographers”. With the humility that characterizes him, he says that knowledge must always be socialized: “I share what I have learned, without selfishness, without any kind of vanities, and that makes me very happy.”

Pedro Valtierra published his first photographs in the Boxeo Ilustrado and América magazines. He later became a photographer for Social Communication of the Presidency of the Republic. He worked in newspapers such as El Sol de México and unomásuno. He was founder and head of the photography department La Jornada and director of Mira magazine. In 1986 he created the Cuartoscuro photography agency, and in 1993 the magazine of the same name, both of which he directs to this day. He promoted the foundation of the Photo Library of Zacatecas, where he has promoted various projects to rescue the historical and photographic archives of the states of central and northern Mexico.

His extensive career has earned him various awards, such as the National Journalism Award; twice the INBA Photography Biennial Award; the Silver Medal of the International Organization of Journalists in Moscow; the King of Spain Award for Best International News Photography, among others. She has had more than 370 exhibitions in Mexico, Russia, Argentina, England, Canada, the United States, Cuba, Spain, France, Italy, Germany, Belgium, Venezuela, Ecuador, Guatemala and Costa Rica.

The National Tribute of Cultural Journalism Fernando Benítez was instituted by the FIL Guadalajara in 1992 to recognize the author of The Indians of Mexico, and since then it has celebrated the solidity of the works and the trajectories of great figures of journalism in our country. The verdict is the responsibility of a committee made up of some honorees in previous years, as well as prominent active cultural journalists.