From religious traditions and lowrider car shows to downtime for late 20th-century teens, photographer Kevin Bubriski documents intimate and nostalgic scenes of Hispanic New Mexicans, or Nuevomexicanos, in Look into My Eyes: Nuevomexicanos por Vida, ’81-’83.
Taken around Albuquerque and northern New Mexico from 1981 to 1983, Bubriski’s photography stands out in a realm where photographers tend to gravitate toward dramatic scenery rather than everyday people. As the foreword notes, “In the early 1980s, a photographer seldom looked at Nuevomexicanos, a group that was, and continues to be, marginalized.”
Bubriski writes that his fascination with his subjects spurred him to attend “every fiesta, parade, celebration, and religious observance I heard about and had the gas money to get to.” His work in New Mexico captures a culture as distinct as any he’d go on to encounter throughout his international photography career.
Look into My Eyes: Nuevomexicanos por Vida, ’81-’83
By Kevin Bubriski
139 pages, hardcover; $39.95.
Museum of New Mexico Press, 2016.
This article appeared in the print edition of the magazine with the headline Photos: Three years with New Mexico’s Hispanic communities.
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