Portrait

It’s not possible to take a photo of the wind, but it’s possible to capture the effect of wind… In this way, it’s possible to “see” the wind when it frantically shakes the branches of a tree. The same can be said about the range of feelings that permeate people’s daily lives: there’s no way to photograph love or hate, but there’s a way to photograph the effect caused by them. In this case, it’s also presented the subjectivity of those who see a certain event.

I’ve been photographing rainy scenes for seven years and for me, it was always a source of satisfaction. As I said in another post: “The rain brings me the feeling of silent, inside and out, and for a photography this silent is essential”.

I took the following picture in August 2011, at Itanhaém – a city located at the southern coast of São Paulo state. It’s obvious that people go to the beach during summer, but a family matter took me to this place on a typical winter day, with cold and rain. I was walking along the sidewalk under a light rain when I saw this scene at the other side of the street. At this moment, I pulled out the camera (the compact one, that’s always in my bag) and took this photo. I thought it was a “portrait” of melancholy; the person’s back seemed dramatic, the ocean and the stormy sky mean a huge threat and the loneliness makes itself present. However, if you look closely, you could see that a faint light (the Sun) is overshadowed by the character’s face, indicating that maybe, I’m completely wrong: it’s possible that this is a portrait of a person watching the sun overcoming the storm and returning to shine.

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