Pedro Valtierra celebrates 50 years behind the camera

Photographer Pedro Valtierra began his professional career in the 1970s. Credit: José L. Ramírez

At the suggestion of journalist Manuel Becerra Acosta, his boss at Unomásuno, Valtierra always carries a book with him. Credit: José L. Ramírez

The Centro de la Imagen exhibits "Return to the Land of the Quetzal," an exhibition that reveals its perspective on injustice. Credit: José L. Ramírez

The exhibition features his camera, notes, and contact sheets. Credit: José L. Ramírez

The exhibition portrays the phenomenon of forced displacement due to armed conflict, as in this image titled "A Guatemalan Refugee (1982)" on the Echeverría border in Chiapas. Credit: © Pedro Valtierra / Courtesy

"Return to the Land of the Quetzal" documents the armed movement that took place in Guatemala in the early 1980s; above, "Training (1982)." Credit: © Pedro Valtierra / Courtesy

Valtierra's lens captures in this image a "Mamé Guerrilla (1982)" from a Mayan village in Guatemala. Credit: © Pedro Valtierra / Courtesy

The photojournalist followed people who left their homes with only the clothes on their backs and spent days walking through the jungle in search of shelter. This image was taken in Frontera Echeverría, Chiapas, in 1982. Credit: © Pedro Valtierra / Courtesy

In a clandestine refugee camp, the innocent gaze of a girl captured by Pedro Valtierra's camera in 1982, Chiapas, emerges. Credit: © Pedro Valtierra / Courtesy

The exhibition "Return to the Land of the Quetzal" by Pedro Valtierra is on display until July at the Centro de la Imagen (Plaza de la Ciudadela 2, Centro). The photo above was taken on the Mexico-Guatemala border in 1982; it is untitled. Credit: © Pedro Valtierra / Courtesy