Zonda`s Quest

Last piece I wrote, about Sebastião Salgado`s work was probably one of the best things I ever did. Not because I was right and my arguments were sound, but because I was wrong and had the opportunity to learn by writing it and discussing it with people.

Right the day after I published it, a very dear friend of mine, Rubens, came to me and told me: “Well, I have a theory”. It took me about 4/3 of a second to reply: “here we go!”. According to Rubens what I see as conformism and taking the same picture “over and over” is, in fact, the artistic identity of the author. When I fail to reach obvious conclusions, I take comfort over the fact that I can change my point of view rather quickly when well convinced. Its something like being dumb, but changing quickly when alerted. Yes, Rubens was and is right. I don’t expect to leave the theater crying after a Michael Bay movie. I expect explosions and lasers and giant robots and more explosions and military and DECEPTICONS! Calling Michael Bay an artist worth discussing seems like pushing it but it serves to illustrate my point.

Looking back, to my own preferences, thank god Monet, Rembrandt, Metallica, Led Zeppelin or Deep Purple all had their identity.

That, in the other hand, does not invalidate the passion for the new. Silverchair did it, Linkin Park did it, Metallica did it AND IT SUCKED. Let`s leave Sebastião Salgado with poverty in high contrast B&W.

Rubens is right, end of story.

During the same week, I had another opportunity to learn a Photographic Lesson. This time with my cousin Elisa. She was attending a course on architectural photography, and recorded a part of the class. The guy was talking crap all over the place. From a wrong explanation about dynamic range to a terrible explanation about lenses and crop factor. Latter she sent me the link of an article about art and beauty in photography and I went, as the internet says, full retard on her. I was just so overwhelmed about the quantity of bullshit people have the courage to post online. I mean, Aesthetics is a subject older than Plato. For over 1.500 years we, humans, debate on what is beauty and where does it comes from or why. Then, some ass from the middle of nowhere rises to state his opinions based on, well, his opinions and that`s it. Elisa took a deep breath (yeah, I could hear it over the recorded audio on whatsapp) and said: “well cousin, I think you are overly critical. When people know nothing about something they start discussing it until they can make some sort of knowledge”.

Can you smell it? No? It`s the smell of me being wrong. I should definitely rename the blog to: Zonda`s path through the land of wrongness. She is right about the right to state crappy empty opinions. I think, in the other hand, I`m right about the need to seek for knowledge before rising and lecturing people over the internet. We can ditch knowledge for opinions, but that only help us looking dumb.

That`s why I decided to run a project that`s in standby for too long. I will record audio files, of 10 minutes each, about technical aspects of photography. From the very beginning (aperture, ISO, shutter and other basic skills) to the land of strange words and expressions. I hope that I`ll convince Elisa to help me doing some artistic files as well, so it will not get too boring. I`ll record lessons in Portuguese, and while I appreciate the time and patience of all my friends in reading this blog in English so I can practice my second language, no one deserves to hear me speaking for 10 minutes in rusty English!

And, to wrap it up, some pictures I took today with my friend Rubens and his beautiful fiancée Nicolle!

My city, Brasilia, is a place of extremes

It has a harsh dry season with no color or green

Then, all of the sudden, it looks like spring

As yellow leafs fall and then flow with the wind

It`s a beautiful moment like no other I`ve seen

The city turns into yellow before it becomes green

It’s a magnificent spectacle as the “Ipês” (Tabebuia aurea) blossom. Usually flowers are colorful and vivid to attract bees and other pollinizing agents. In my city, the tree attracts a different kind of creature: the photographers. They pollinize the internet seeding pictures on Instagram, Facebook and god knows where else. Over the years, the “Ipê” turned into a very dull photographic theme, as you could virtually find every angle of every tree, day by day, online. Don’t get me wrong, the only reason for this movement is the inspiring beauty of the tree over our harsh background.

My friends, nonetheless, challenged each other into capturing the tree in a “non-lame” way. I went out with my camera and tried. I know the feeling of photographic defeat. It`s that weight on the shoulders after you look at the camera screen and sees a picture that doesn’t even resembles what you were trying.

So that`s it.

I actually don’t like, but accept defeat

And, as a token of humility present to your screen

My very best effort, into a lame theme. :o)

Last week I was talking to some friends and one of them told me the photographer Sebastião Salgado would be doing a presentation of his work here in my city. He is quite a controversial artist, I`ll give him that. While most of my friends like his work and “connect” with it, I feel very critical of it, and my criticism led me to a much bigger enquiry than the B&W work of Sebastião Salgado.

Photography is, without a doubt, the carrier of some kind of message. Barthes paradox even states that “photograph is a message deprived of a code”. The discussion about the existence of a “photographic” language is the object of tons of knowledge in semiotics and very convincing arguments on both sides. Next cocktail party you want to convince someone of your intellectuality, please use the word “semiotics”, record it, and email me! :o)

For now, I`m satisfied in knowing there is a message embedded in every photograph. Now, back to S.S work. If you google his pictures, you`ll probably conclude that his message is crystal clear: a kind of dry b&w, with a very high contrast and clarity, boosting the subjects of the picture. It turns your stomach the first time you see it. First time I looked at it, I was stunned. He was definitely able to transmit the feeling of poverty and harshness. I could literally feel it for the first four or five pictures. Then came the sixth and seventh pictures and all I could see was over processed photography.

Yup. I was numb to it.

Put too much salt on your food and soon it will be your new normal (Salgado, in Portuguese is “salty”, but really, no pun intended). And here, on the third paragraph we get to the main question: is Sebastião Salgado`s way of expressing his art a good and clear way of sending a message, or is it overdoing as the viewer loses the ability to connect with his work after a little while?

When we add the reality of photography to this equation (tons of pictures of the same thing, and of everything, taken every day) the answer comes even harder. Is punching the viewer on the face a good way of differentiation? Or is it a way of leveling out with the “slider happy” noob?

While I`m still not able to answer, I find the way into finding the answer a very rich opportunity of learning new ways to photograph. For the moment I`ll stick with my personal opinion that making the same pictures over and over again and sending the same message over and over again is best for fixed surveillance cameras than for an artist, but who am I to judge, right?

See it bigger on 500px.

…shoot it with Canon. :o)

See it larger at 500px.