Sáshenka Gutiérrez, Ortega y Gasset Award for Best Photography: "I knew that moment of love was the photo"

The Mexican Sáshenka Gutiérrez knew that she would like to dedicate herself to photography when she was struck by an image in the newspaper

that his father brought home.

She showed some hooded and armed indigenous people going down the mountains.

She was 15 years old.

Today, at the age of 42, she has received the Ortega y Gasset award for best photography with an image that is also impressive, but of a very different nature: Sandra Monroy, a young woman who underwent a double mastectomy, is cared for by her mother and a friend.

The image is titled

"I want to dedicate this recognition to all the women who fight against breast cancer every day," said Gutiérrez upon receiving the award.

"I think the photo has several readings," explains the photographer in Valencia, where the awards ceremony was held.

“You see her and it impresses you: a woman with almost living scars, without breasts... But it is also an image that moves a lot, I see that sisterhood between them, how the mother kisses her hand, how her friend holds her hand. another hand.

I knew the moment I took it, for that moment of love, that this was her photo.

It was like a decisive moment, it was very beautiful.

I remember that my body bristled and my heart beat faster.

They taught her to say that she was beautiful, ”says the photojournalist, born in Mexico City, whose parents gave her a Russian name after a character in Gorky's novel

.

Sandra Monroy receives help from her mother, Teresa Mandrujano, and her friend Gina Ramírez, three months after having a bilateral mastectomy.

She is the award-winning image at the 2022 Ortega y Gasset awards. Sáshenka Gutiérrez (EFE)

The photograph was taken for the Efe agency in Mexico, where Gutiérrez works, and was published in various media.

But it was not intended to be so.

Sashenka and Sandra were friends from before.

The photographer called her on the phone and asked if she had already "said goodbye to her breasts."

She “she told me that she only had pictures of her cell phone;

so I went to her house and with her approval I took mine.

I took very few photos, because I didn't want to make any noise.

I questioned myself several times if I was doing the right thing, I wanted to be extremely respectful, but I was convinced by her attitude, that she has been very brave to talk about a mastectomy that is usually hidden and that saved her life”, she indicates.

Monroy chose not to reconstruct her breasts and promote a support network for other patients.

More information

The 2022 Ortega y Gasset Journalism Awards gala, live

Sáshenka Gutiérrez admits the difficulty of working as a journalist in Mexico, where 11 murders have been recorded so far this year.

“In [Mexico] City you can expose yourself to many things, and even more so as a photographer and a woman, but you don't live with that persecution all day long.

It is a reality, it is one of the most dangerous countries to practice journalism.

In the states they kill their comrades left and right.

In the city, in demonstrations or in risk coverage, I have my security protocol, I get on Uber and share my transfers with a link.

He is not considering changing his job, despite these risks.

At least for now.

“It is still a poorly paid profession, but I am very passionate about what I do.

And that is often said of journalists who are sold, who only understand a single sack.

When there are murders of colleagues, when something happens, that feeling arises that we are alone, like people are not interested in what happens to us, ”he says.

We'll see later, apostille.