Autorretrato en sombra functions as a self-portrait where Iturbide captures her shadow holding a camera, cast on graffiti-covered ground in East Los Angeles. The image symbolizes her presence within the world she documents—an observer who is both inside and outside the scene. In an interview with the Los Angeles Times (2017), Iturbide explained her interest in photographing cholos, noting that they were of Mexican origin and had been deeply marginalized. During her time living among them, she observed the tension in their environment—gang members like White Fence and Maravilla gathering in parks at night, maintaining a fragile peace “like a cold war.” Yet, as she recalled, the atmosphere was charged and dangerous: “You’d be taking a picture and then you’d hear the sound of a gun being cocked.” Her shadow, then, acts as a quiet witness to that complex and perilous world.