Striking Worker, Assassinated (1934)

Images of death are central to much of Alvarez Bravo's work. Tombs, cemeteries, coffins, cadavers and skeletons of various creatures, and the religious and ceremonial artifacts with which mortality is celebrated in Mexico are often present in his photographs. In this photo a man is lying face up with blood soaking the soil - the place to which we all return. He appears dead but a small, sharp gleam of light in the corner of his left eye suggests in a disconcerting way that life continues.