“Transitions, Untold Stories” is a photographic project that i have been carried out over the past 3 years. The initial premise is street photography, using digital format and color. Most of the images were taken in Oporto, Portugal, apart of one, that was taken in Miranda do Douro. All photographs were taken before sunrise, at night or after sunset.
The methodology of the project involves: Selection of the type of light (use of meteorology) especially humidity and foggy weather, that allows me to use neutral backgrounds, selection of locations in the city, selection of the specific time of day (which will give the contrasting colors), be in the streets and waiting for the moments to happen, storage of images, selection and post-production (where colors and the contrast come to life).
The locations are streets, avenues, places with more open views, bridges, train stations and gardens.
The main motivation was to find personal narratives in the streets, the subjective identification with the people and actions that happen in the photos is something important, because through them i can express something that I feel. All the images using the contrast between warm and cold colors such as blue and green and orange and yellow. This contrast for me, exist in the urban landscape as the representation of a fleeting, dreamlike moment, where something becomes another thing, a passage from dream to reality, where the title of the project “Transitions, Untold Stories” born.
The references that i use to this work were, the italian photographer Michele Palazzo in his book “Dove Comincia il mondo” in Italian, “Where the World Begins” in English where the photographer shows, for me, enchanted first view of New York city as a lover perhaps, using also the same color contrast. American photographer Gregory Crewdson, in the way he thinks about the light that helps his staged narratives. Filmmaker Andrew Tarkvoski, through his photography project where, against his idea of the eternalization of forms through cinema, seeks a more spontaneous light from Polaroid. The color palette of the night landscapes of the painter James Whistler, where he seeks in a spontaneous way (like the Impressionists) to represent the light of dawn and dusk. Brassai and Atget, (Despite the black and white) for their static and architectural compositions, and the type of defuse light that they use in their images.
