This project explores the visual production of Itinerant Photographers and their work in the public space of Tijuana over the past seventy years. The set of images collected to form the first archive of this kind provides insight into social and affective aspects we associate with vernacular photography. These aspects include the history of families and transients in Tijuana, transformations in public space, religious practices, the social construction of modernity and its symbols, youth, gender roles, and the body and its languages in public space.

Photography has become a more significant cultural practice in recent decades, serving both as a tool for representation and a means of spatio-temporal reference. With the advent of photographic applications in cell phones, capturing and visualizing physical and virtual spaces we encounter has evolved its potential. As a result, my project aimed to explore critical issues such as the transformation of our relationship with images, the processes of representation and construction of collective memory, and the impact of technology on contemporary labor practices and their actors.

The goal of the five years of work on this project (2012-2017) was to recognize the cultural but, above all, labor dimension of the Itinerant Photographers’ profession in Tijuana at a time of risk. A technological paradigm shift seemed to threaten their labor in public spaces. Five years after the completion of this project, the itinerant photographers resisted. They have achieved this by organizing collectively, learning, and adjusting their practices to the new technological possibilities.