Let us say that photography photographic work has its mysterious ways. The topic of collecting images of Portugal led me into thinking of image as both diversity and a journey, encompassing the hinterland of the rural country and the coastline of the Atlantic, blending in that borderline system other hinterlands of extreme significant potential.<\/p>\n
Running through my own archive \u2013 memory within memory \u2013 I have searched then that path, finding it in holiday seasons during which, I realize now (and indeed the journey into one\u2019s own archive proves to be a (re)discovery journey, but also, and mainly, a self-realization journey), I almost always use film and only a 50mm lens.<\/p>\n
The mindset of the geographical dislocation through the country seemed to materialize in the colour and density of 35mm films. As if fl\u00e2nerie<\/em>, or rather, as if the emotional perception of what to fl\u00e2ner<\/em> implies, cutting through the film\u2019s matter, left its imprint. One doubts whether the unconscious is optical (in a Benjaminian sense) or whether the fl\u00e2neur<\/em>\u2019s unconscious gradually becomes conscious. If Benjamin, referring to Paris and Baudelaire, spoke of the city as a phantasmagoria for the fl\u00e2neur<\/em>, can it not also be a country for its inhabitant-traveler?<\/p>\n By looking at the images one notices how some of the used films are worn out or imperfect, outdate or out-of-time (perhaps too in the sense that Agamben attributes to contemporaneity, as a concept implying distance from his own time). The time used in each photogram and the different times I have used in the making of those images give shape to the project of creating a portrait \u2013 one among many – of Portugal. Nevertheless, a Portugal-portrait \u2013 and in fact, the selection from the pre-existing image archive that takes place surprises me: upon meeting that Portugal-portrait I identify it as real and truthful; in better words: representative.<\/p>\n From a countryside house in Minho to the \u201clandscape\u201d that invades an Algarve window, including the back of a Mirand\u00eas donkey or a cat and dolphins from the Azores, the journey begins with a toy-boat reflecting in a mirror \u2013 a musing upon that very own Portuguese postcard, ominously reminiscent of the dictatorial appropriation of a putative historical fate \u2013 to cross sunny landscapes which dilute in a representation of the sea in a more and more colourless film. The end of the series reveals itself thus as the beginning of the 35mm film, yet another beginning of the film.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The subject of collecting images of Portugal<\/b> made me think of that image as a diversity and as a journey, which includes the rural countryside and the Atlantic coast of the country.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":229,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7,3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-208","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-destaque","category-fotografia"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ritacastroneves.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/208","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ritacastroneves.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ritacastroneves.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ritacastroneves.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ritacastroneves.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=208"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/ritacastroneves.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/208\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":421,"href":"https:\/\/ritacastroneves.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/208\/revisions\/421"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ritacastroneves.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/229"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ritacastroneves.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=208"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ritacastroneves.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=208"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ritacastroneves.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=208"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}