Abstract This text makes a historiographical tour of the 20th Mexican century to understand how the studies about the photography’s history started, which were made to find their photographers, shapes and types of work, and different conceptual and methodological tendencies were present throughout this century to build this undisclosed history. Understanding the different ways to narrate the analogic photography’s history, allows us to reveal the problems which digital photography’s researchers are having and the new challenges that are appearing during this new century.

Resumen El presente texto hace un recorrido historiográfico del siglo XX mexicano, para comprender cómo se iniciaron los estudios sobre la historia de la fotografía, que buscan a sus fotógrafos, las formas y los estilos de trabajo, así como las diversas tendencias conceptuales y metodológicas que se presentaron a lo largo de ese siglo para construir esa historia no develada. Comprender los diversos caminos que se enfrentaron para historiar la fotografía analógica permite también revelar los problemas a los que se enfrentarán los estudiosos de la fotografía digital y los nuevos retos que parece presentar este nuevo siglo.

Este ensaio narra um episódio histórico no qual a eleita Miss México de 1928 converteu-se em uma 'auto-viúva' no ano seguinte. A história não é somente mais uma anedota da vida pós-revolução mexicana, mas apresenta uma série de elementos que refletem claramente as transições vivenciadas pelas mulheres naqueles anos, nos quais a modernidade se aproximava. O importante é a forma como se projetaram essas mudanças sociais, culturais e legais, as quais deram um significado às mulheres e ao seu momento libertário, que se manifestava de maneira muito diferente frente à vida militar e política. Trata-se de um estudo de caso que permite observar de forma clara e embasada, por meio das imagens fotográficas, as transformações na agitada vida cotidiana do México, a partir do ponto de vista da história de gênero e de abordagens da história cultural.

This essay narrates an historical episode that happened with the winner of Miss Mexico 1928, in which she killed her own husband in the year after. This story is not just another anecdote about life in the Mexican post revolution, but a story that reflects clearly the transitions that women lived in these years in which modernization came closer. The important part about this is how these social, cultural and legal changes were projected and gave women a meaning and their freedom wanting phase, in which the military and political life was showed in a different way. This is a case study that helps to observe in a clear and justified way, through photographic images, the transformations in the agitated daily life in Mexico, from the point of view of Gender History and approaches of Cultural History.

The case of María Teresa de Landa was an event arousing considerable attention in its time. In 1928 she was the first "Miss Mexico" and, for the greater glory of her country, was competing for the World beauty title in Galveston, Texas. Her beauty, intelligence and tenacity had won her the Mexican title. A year later, however, she was arrested for the crime of murder, having shot her bigamous husband general Moisés Vidal. The story has important implications for history, not only for the social implications of both circumstances, but also as something that throws into vivid relief the situation of post-revolutionary society, the encounters between the military and civil sectors, social and cultural dissonances. It is also illustrative of the way in which the legal system operated, in the sense that no woman accused of murdering her husband was condemned to imprisonment during the 1920s. "Avengers of female destiny" was a phrase applied by Aurelio de los Reyes, suggesting a history of mentalities, a social and cultural history, but also a history of gender in the process of construction and salvage in its most intimate details. This text addresses only a part of the many facets of that world that revealed itself as crude, hard and subtly aggressive.

El caso de María Teresa de Landa fue un evento muy comentado en su época. En 1928 fue Miss México, concursante internacional que puso en alto el nombre de nuestro país en Gálveston, Texas, su belleza, su capacidad y su tenacidad le valieron el título. Un año después estaba presa por el delito de "uxoricidio", es decir, por haber matado a su bígamo esposo, el general Moisés Vidal. El evento tiene tintes importantes para la historia no sólo por las implicaciones sociales de ambos eventos, sino porque es una muestra clara de la sociedad posrevolucionaria, los encuentros entre la parte civil y la militar, las disonancias sociales, culturales, pero también muestra de qué manera se manejaba el sistema legal, en tal medida que ninguna de las "uxoricidas" fue condenada a la cárcel en los años veinte del siglo pasado. "Vengadoras del destino femenino" lo llama Aurelio de los Reyes y en ello vemos una historia de las mentalidades, una historia social, una cultural, pero también una historia de género que está en construcción y rescate en sus más minúsculas formas. Este texto pretende mostrar sólo una parte de las facetas de todo este mundo que se mostraba crudo, duro y sutilmente agresivo.

In this article the author invites the reader to study and analyze the photographs from different points of view and from a wide angle intellectual theory, with the inter, trans and multiple disciplines of social studies. The specialists should get involved within different elements that create the image in a certain historical period of time. Looking at the images is not just seeing them, its important also to observe other items like the technical, formal, thematic and ideological aspects. With the assistance of different authors, and theories it is possible to analyze the images and emphasize the key elements they relate. The author also analyzes through different photographers the way a photography is created, so is important to study also the photos since the point of view of the creator, to understand his professional and aesthetical interests, among other elements and also to get to know the primary social use of the image or the images in study. Its also essential to comprehend the differences in between analog and digital photography, so the specialist can understand the difficulties, the proposes and also the tricks photographers uses to create the image. To recognize these elements within the frame of the historic, social, economic, cultural and aesthetic moment of production of the document or the images being studied will bring a great quantity of information to observe, reconstruct and understand them with a better or a realistic wide comprehension angle. Through different examples of Mexican, North American, British and Latin- American photographers, with various photographs, and references to theoretical and analytic authors like Boris Kossoy, Peter Burke, Vilhem Flusser, or the semiotic point of view of Roland Barthes or Phillipe Duboise, the author proposes to approach the world of images and to discover the mysterious language of analog and digital photography in these changing and enigmatic visual twentieth and twenty-first centuries.

El ensayo tiene por finalidad acercar a los que se inician en el camino del análisis visual a detenerse frente a la imagen o grupo de fotografías desde diferentes posturas teórico metodológicas de análisis. Se insiste en la necesidad de valorar las imágenes desde diferentes perspectivas técnico, formales, temático, ideológicas, que dan pie a comprender el discurso fotográfico intrínseco. De tal suerte que la lectura se realice con seriedad, profundidad y encontrando los diversos discursos que contiene la imagen desde la perspectiva histórica, social, estética, cultural, y sobre todo se subraya la necesidad de tomar en cuenta la perspectiva del creador de la imagen. Valorar la imagen desde el momento en que se creó, verla con los ojos de la época, del fotógrafo, de las dificultades técnicas, formales, de su postura ideológica, del uso social primigenio de la imagen en su momento, son algunos de los elementos a analizar y a desmontar de las fotografías para su análisis. Es necesario, que el estudioso se instale en el momento de la producción para valorar el imaginario de la época, los otros grupos documentales creados en ese momento y devele la importancia documental y estética de la imagen o imágenes en estudio. Con ejemplos claros de fotógrafos se desarrolla el análisis para comprender el cambio que ha sufrido la fotografía de su perspectiva analógica y digital, elemento que tiene que ser considerado en las fotografías de fin del siglo XX y principios del XXI. El reto del estudioso de las imágenes no es fácil, pues tiene ante sí nuevas metodologías de análisis que tendrá que desarrollar conforme de acerque a los nuevos modos de producción digital de esta nueva era fotográfica. Para ello, los recursos que nos proveen los estudiosos como Boris Kossoy, Peter Burke, Vilhem Flusser, Roland Barthes o Phillipe Duboise, entre otros, son parte de esa metodología de análisis que nos proveerá herramientas más certeras para acercarnos al maravilloso mundo de la fotografía entre lo analógico y lo digital.