“The medics even let me take pictures inside the operating rooms, in the emergency rooms.”

H: Why were you attracted to taking pictures of dead people?

M: Because of the movies! [I laugh.] Seriously!

H: And what did your father say, your mother?

M: No, well, I hid a lot. “Chamacho!” they would tell me, mostly. But here comes the second part. Lots of cars passed through San Cosme. So I would always have the camera at the restaurant. The funny thing was one day a car crashed right in San Cosme, a couple blocks from the restaurant. So there I go, to take pictures. And a taxi arrives with a photographer from La Prensa. He saw me taking pictures and he asked me if I liked to take pictures. I tell him, “Yes.” He says, “Come see me at La Prensa. I am a photographer from there. I am Antonio Velasquez.” So I go, I talk to him, I show him my pictures, and he asks me to come work there.

I showed up every morning at ten with my camera, which was a camera de cajon that took black-and-white pictures, and I would tag along with him when he worked, going as a photographer from La Prensa to the police incidents of the city. The route we took every day was the jail and Hospital Juarez, where they kept the cadavers and the injured. And then the Red Cross. I would not only see dead people, but thirty or forty dead people in a single day. So I got used to seeing dead people—and more dead people—and I took their pictures. And we would go to where the dead person was, and since the authorities then the reporter do his work, we would go right inside the houses where the crime had occurred, on the street, in the factory, in a ditch, or wherever, and I would take pictures of all those dead people. And the funny thing is we would develop the rolls together, mine and his—and I had better pictures than he did! Because I would get in where he wouldn’t go. So I have pictures on the front page of La Prensa at twelve years old, with my name on the front page, which is a completely unique case.

H: But you would go where the crimes had happened?

M: Ah, no, [yes], I got to go to the scenes of the strong shoot-outs, the crimes, the action. But I had so much luck that in the moment that I arrived, the best stuff happened. Because I believe there is no good photographer without good luck. Why? Because I would get to a fire and the best picture happened when I got there. It would collapse, someone would jump–it was really something–really, it was very extraordinary what would happen to me, very rare.

H: And you wouldn’t have nightmares?

M: Oh, yes, I would cry at night. I would dream it. I was in this day and night. I would dream of something happening and it would happen.

H: You’re kidding.

M: On top of that, the other photographers were so jealous of me. Because the other photographers were already older, and I was just a kid. They were jealous, and know what they did? One day the put water in my developer. My roll was ruined. The editor got so mad, he fired me.