Excerto da apresentação do livro “Fotografias em obras de Eduardo Souto de Moura” de Luis Ferreira Alves. Discurso de Pedro Leão Neto, no passado dia 18 de Junho 2016, na Galeria Rui Alberto, no Porto. A apresentação contou também com a presença do autor, Luis Ferreira Alves, e do arquitecto, Eduardo Souto de Moura.
Excerto da apresentação do livro “Fotografias em obras de Eduardo Souto de Moura”. Discurso do editor (sobre o autor), Pedro Leão Neto, no passado dia 18 de Junho de 2016, na Galeria Rui Alberto, no Porto. A apresentação contou também com a presença do autor, Luis Ferreira Alves, e do arquitecto Eduardo Souto de Moura.
Public presentation followed by open questions from the public concerning the Editorial Project focused on Documentary and Artistic photography related to Architecture, City and Territory. It will be seen how this Editorial Project SCOPIO has, on the one hand, supported and spread the various text and image content related to the topics of interest and whose origins emanate from initiatives and projects in which the research group CCRE collaborates, or that is coming from its research line City Spaces and Culture. On the other hand, how it has spread several photography projects and authors who conduct research on photography as an exploratory and innovative tool for thinking critically the themes of Architecture, City and Territory.
The project aims to promote the awareness and reflection upon art and documentary photography in regards to its conception as an instrument to question Architecture, City and Territory universe. This means understanding Architecture as an extended discipline and practice with an interest, on one side, in the real space and its experiences, exploring new spatial forms and architectural codes, and on the other side, in how architecture operates within larger systems: socio-cultural, technical, and historical.
Public presentation followed by open questions from the public concerning the Editorial Project focused on Documentary and Artistic photography related to Architecture, City and Territory. It will be seen how this Editorial Project SCOPIO has, on the one hand, supported and spread the various text and image content related to the topics of interest and whose origins emanate from initiatives and projects in which the research group CCRE collaborates, or that is coming from its research line City Spaces and Culture. On the other hand, how it has spread several photography projects and authors who conduct research on photography as an exploratory and innovative tool for thinking critically the themes of Architecture, City and Territory.
The project aims to promote the awareness and reflection upon art and documentary photography in regards to its conception as an instrument to question Architecture, City and Territory universe. This means understanding Architecture as an extended discipline and practice with an interest, on one side, in the real space and its experiences, exploring new spatial forms and architectural codes, and on the other side, in how architecture operates within larger systems: socio-cultural, technical, and historical.
Public presentation followed by open questions from the public concerning the Editorial Project focused on Documentary and Artistic photography related to Architecture, City and Territory. It will be seen how this Editorial Project SCOPIO has, on the one hand, supported and spread the various text and image content related to the topics of interest and whose origins emanate from initiatives and projects in which the research group CCRE collaborates, or that is coming from its research line City Spaces and Culture. On the other hand, how it has spread several photography projects and authors who conduct research on photography as an exploratory and innovative tool for thinking critically the themes of Architecture, City and Territory.
The project aims to promote the awareness and reflection upon art and documentary photography in regards to its conception as an instrument to question Architecture, City and Territory universe. This means understanding Architecture as an extended discipline and practice with an interest, on one side, in the real space and its experiences, exploring new spatial forms and architectural codes, and on the other side, in how architecture operates within larger systems: socio-cultural, technical, and historical.
No passado sábado, dia 21 de Janeiro 2017, Pedro Leão Neto, Editor da scopio Editions e Docente / Investigador na área da Arquitectura e Fotografia (FAUP), apresentou numa sessão aberta da plataforma CI.CLO, “Foto-livros: Narrativas Visuais e Sintaxe”, tendo como base textos de análise crítica de Gerry Badget e David Bate sobre estratégias visuais e lógicas sequenciais passíveis de adoptar na construção de um foto-livro, são comentados diversos exemplos de edição fotográfica e de técnicas de narrativa visual.
A Plataforma CI.CLO é uma estrutura independente de formação pesquisa e criação, na área da fotografia e a sua interação com outras disciplinas artísticas, ambientais e sociais. Oferece um programa regular de formação, debate, residências artísticas, exposição e difusão.
Este programa de formação conta com a colaboração de artistas formadores, curadores e investigadores ligadas à fotografia, mas também de outras disciplinas de Filosofia, Ciências Sociais e Ambientais, que irão orientar debates e oficinas específicas e temáticas, centradas no laboratório de formação, com o objetivo de desencadear processos de pensamento criativos através do intercâmbio multidisciplinar e transversal a diversos conhecimentos e experiências, nomeadamente Virgílio Ferreira (organizador e coordenador do projecto), Maria do Carmo Serén, Olivia da Silva, Paulo Catrica, Rita Castro Neves, João Lima, Susana Lourenço Marques, Pedro Leão Neto, Tiago Porteiro, Manuela Ferreira, Rui Leal, Luís Fernandes, Marco Rocha, Krzysztof Candrowicz, Ricardo Mendes, Álvaro Domingues, Christian Barbe, David Antunes, Jorge Castro Ribeiro, Katja Tschimmel, Pedro Sena Nunes.
In the call for the number 3 of Branca Journal “Humanitarian Architecture practices” it is proposed to promote interdisciplinary research and critical reflections on humanitarian practice, with a special focus on the contributions that the disciplines of architecture and urban planning can make to communities experiencing extreme poverty, forced displacement by natural disasters or conflict, and the increasing impacts of climate change.
We invite researchers, professionals and students to contribute with papers to the following topics:
1. Research: call for contributions about the history, processes, opportunities, contexts and impacts of humanitarian practice with special focus on the disciplines of architecture and urban planning;
2. Professional Practice: call for contributions on reflective practices or/and its critical analysis within the field of humanitarian architecture through design-based projects in the emergency and development fields;
3. Design Education: call for different strategies in which design education is, or might be, enriched through the integration of humanitarian architecture issues.
Deadline for submissions: 23rd November 2018.
For more information http://revistabranca.com
HO: Where was this photograph taken?
HB: Kolumba Museum – designed by Peter Zumthor – in Cologne, Germany.
HO: When was this photograph taken?
HB: The date could be 2008 or 2006, I forgot. It was just before the opening of the building.
HO: Was this the first time you were in this city and in this space?
HB: I had been there for four or five days. But it was the first time I shot Kolumba. After I did the photographing I came back a year later to do more photos for the museum - as it was finished with the art pieces inside. So I thought it would be interesting to go back to the same room and see if I can play around the subject. As a result I did a few colour photos, but I do think that the first set was the most successful without a doubt.
HO: Are there any technical aspects about this photograph that you would like to mention?
HB: My work is shot on film and I don’t shoot digital. I use a 4x5 camera which is the classical camera that architectural photographers use.
HO: What's the story behind this photograph?
HB: I was shooting, and it was actually the end of the shoot, and there was a lot of construction work going on around – it looks very peaceful but then it was noisy, and there were big machines – and there were two moments that happened. One was that the electricity was cut out. Finally my brain worked better because there was not so much noise but also there was no artificial light, and suddenly, there was this very small effect of the light “touching” the concrete ceiling which made the light coming in through the brick wall much more relevant. So I had to beg the workers not to repair the problem with the power too quickly so I could take this photograph. So, in most shoots I try to plan what I am doing, but this was absolutely not planned, and I was glad it happened because it was a significant moment in capturing that building.
HO: Why did you select this photograph?
HB: For me it embodies a lot of things that are important. That moment of light captures the role of how light creates a “body of life” in the building, and it makes me understand how not only do we need light to see materials and space, but we also need the space to see the light. If we have light without any object or material we would not be able to see the light. This means that the relationship between light and object is incredibly important and somehow poetic. In my photograph you can feel a body of light that is playing around the room. It is created from different openings in the wall, reflecting and refracting into different beams of light.
Hélène Binet is a Swiss-French architectural photographer based in London.
The image and interview selected are part of the editorial project "1 Photo(grapher)".
HO: Where was this photograph taken?
JCS: In a small room in the new National Coach Museum, in Lisbon.
HO: When was it taken?
JCS: In 2013.
HO: What were the conditions there?
JCS: The room was lit only by an overhead sunlight coming through the huge white skylights. The museum had no one there besides me and someone from the security staff who escorted my visit. Silence.
HO: Are there any technical aspects about the shooting that you want to point out?
JCS: I photographed this image using a wide-angle lens camera on a tripod.
HO: How did you get inside the building?
JCS: Through the architect Paulo Mendes da Rocha. It was a planned visit so that I photograph the building.
HO: Had you been there before?
JCS: I had been there at least twice. One while it was being built and another time when it building was finished.
HO: Why did you choose this image? Was there anything you wanted to tell through it?
JCS: I look for images that are not imposed by being spectacular. Rather, I look for images which, through silence, try to speak about the particularity of an architecture. So, I found this image which seemed to be a bit enigmatic and thus questioned the architecture. I try not to demand for abstraction, but the intention of getting closer to architecture and to question it, to make it a bit more intelligible and conscious.
And so, we are in a small room of a large building, focusing on one direction, we see a diagonal wide span, a large diagonal metal element. At first, we could ask ourselves about the existence of these diagonal elements and then we could quickly take formalistic understandings out of these diagonals. However, if we digest some of what we see, having in mind the relations regarding the wholeness of the project, maybe we can be seduced by this architecture, by this building.
The design of the diagonal opening, enlighted on the left side of the image, corresponds to the opening of a gap in a wall that is a huge metal truss. Still on the left, closer, we can see the part of a huge cross which makes the horizontal locking of huge "wall-beams" that suspend the entire building.
So, looking at the architecture with the desire of understanding it, we find out that, even in a small room, in what seem to be small visible details, we can glimpse part of the whole which sets up the project, and that manifests itself. We understand the relationship of the parts with the whole in the understanding of the architecture of the building. Therefore, I am not only looking for a visual, or a theoretical or a formal issue, but a constructive one, and so an architectural one as well.
João Carmo Simões is a Portuguese architecture photographer.
The image and interview selected are part of the editorial project "1 Photo(grapher)".
HO: Onde foi a fotografia tirada?
PP: Em Cornellá (Barcelona, Espanha). O edifício é o novo campo do RCD Español.
HO: Quando foi a fotografia tirada?
PP: Domingo, 2 de Agosto de 2009. Às 20:50h e 32 segundos.
HO: Quais eram as condições do espaço?
PP: A temperatura, como se pode ver pelas roupas das pessoas fotografadas, era quente, ainda que estivesse a anoitecer, estávamos no Verão. A luz é a dos focos que iluminam o terreno de jogo e o som é o de qualquer estádio de futebol, pessoas que naquele momento ainda estavam tranquilas. Nesse dia, estava a fazer fotografias do novo campo de futebol do RCD Español, ao encargo dos arquitectos (Reid FenwickAsociados e Gasulla Arquitectura) e com o motivo da inauguração do espaço. Posteriormente realizei outra sessão com o estádio vazio. A fotografia está tirada desde uma passarela suspensa na cobertura, para a manutenção do edifício e está em cima das bancadas onde se sentam as pessoas. Uma posição privilegiada.
HO: Existem aspectos técnicos acerca da captura desta fotografia que gostaria de apontar?
PP: Poucos aspectos técnicos, na verdade. Câmara na mão, ISO alto mas não muito (800), diafragma 5.6, ao contrário do que deve ser para se conseguir um “grão” fino e uma boa definição, mas do local onde estava a ser tirada a fotografia, não se podia colocar um tripé e interessava-me ter uma velocidade de obturação suficiente para que as pessoas não fossem registadas na imagem em movimento. Estava obrigado a que assim fosse.
HO: O que acha mais interessante nesta imagem?
PP: Agrada-me a composição, o ponto de vista. Sobretudo o facto de que nesta fotografia as pessoas são as protagonistas, as que dão sentido à arquitectura e à fotografia.
HO: Existe algum acontecimento peculiar acerca da captura desta imagem que queira partilhar?
PP: Curiosamente, durante esse fim-de-semana (na verdade, no dia anterior), conheci a mulher com quem me casei, a mãe do meu filho.
HO: Existe algo que estava a tentar comunicar através desta fotografia?
PP: No geral, espero que quando as pessoas vejam as minhas fotografias, sintam algo, se sintam emocionadas, com sugestões, ou seja, que desfrutem ao apreciá-las.
Pedro Pegenaute é fotógrafo de arquitectura e vive em Espanha.
A imagem e entrevista seleccionadas fazem parte do projecto editorial “1 Photo(grapher)”.
HO: Where was the photograph taken?
NG: At the Rambert School of Ballet and Contemporary Dance, in London.
HO: When was it taken?
NG: In January, 2014.
HO: What were the conditions on site?
NG: It was warm. The dancers have to have warm conditions to avoid injury. No smells, but good music. I can't remember what it was exactly.
HO: Are there any technical aspects about the shooting that you want to point out?
NG: This is an example of a constructed architectural shot with a performer. I drew the shot beforehand with the architect, therefore I dreamt it before I took it. Then I positioned tripod (low) and using a view camera with both rise and sideways movements created my composition.
From then on I used approximately four lights, all profoto. Magnum reflector as the key light on a megaboom approximately 30 feet high up. XL umbrella as the fill + several D1 heads with 20mm built in reflectors to catch the ceiling and the background wall. Each light was metered individually beforehand.
HO: How did you get this opportunity?
NG: It was a commission by Allies and Morrison.
HO: Had you been there before this photograph was taken?
NG: Yes. I was half way through when I took this. The commission lasted two weeks.
HO: Why did you select this image and what do you find most interesting about it?
NG: Well, it is so nice to mix my skills as an architectural photographer, with lighting and a performer.
HO: Is there a particular story about this photograph that you would like to share?
NG: One of the dancers had had a hip replacement, so that was nice to help celebrate her recovery.
HO: Was there anything that you discovered through it?
NG: It was completely set up, the only thing I couldn't predict was the moves the dancer would make and the light outside.
Nick Guttridge is a London based photographer working for the arts and architecture community.
The image and interview selected are part of the editorial project "1 Photo(grapher)".
HO: Where was the photo taken?
MZG: The photo was taken at the Campus of the University of Alcalá, in Alcalá de Henares, nearby Madrid, in Spain.
HO: When was the photo taken?
MZG: The photo was taken on May 24th 2012, around 21h30… but don’t remember the second!
HO: What were the conditions at the site?
MZG: It was a beautiful spring day, in that moment with a comfortable temperature (around 25º C), soft light, I was in a calm and quiet area, with a smell of fresh green grass and trees of the surrounding vegetation.
HO: Are there any technical aspects about the photograph that you would like to point out?
MZG: I used a wide tilt and shift lenses.
HO: How did you get into the site?
MZG: I got into the site by commission of the architect (Héctor Fernández Elorza).
HO: Had you been on that site before?
MZG: It was my third day at the site. I had been taking pictures, footage and time lapses for a video I did too, so I knew very well the way the light changed the building throughout the day.
HO: Why did you select this image and what do you find most interesting about it?
MZG: I really like the way the idea of the building is expressed and the light in the picture, softening the sharp shape and roughness of the concrete.
HO: Is there a peculiar event about this photograph that you would like to share?
MZG: I took a similar version in the morning: I liked the framing, but I was not so proud of the light. I realized it had to be shot in the afternoon.
HO: Is there anything that you were trying to communicate through this photograph?
MZG: I was trying to make understandable the structural idea of the building: a cantilevered structure, with a big “brise-soleil” shadowing the main interior space. People scale the shot, and the upper foliage of the trees makes the viewer realize that the building is surrounded by vegetation.
Montse Zamorano Gañán is a Spanish photographer based in New York City.
The image and interview selected are part of the editorial project "1 Photo(grapher)"
HO: Where was the photograph taken?
JS: It's an abandoned petrol station in Atlanta, Georgia, USA.
HO: When was the photo taken?
JS: It was taken at the end of April 2011. I don't have an exact time stamp.
HO: What were the conditions at the site?
JS: It was a sunny day, this station is placed between two regional roads, in the middle of a commercial area, accompanied by sound and smell of heavy trucks.
HO: Are there technical aspects about the photograph that you want to point out?
JS: It was made on a 4x5 negative material.
HO: How did you get into the site.
JS: This was the first photo of my latest series "poststructure", which has the focus on commercial sites in the USA. It's my own artistic project, costs are covered by myself.
HO: Had you been in that site before?
JS: No, I had not been there before. I made a rough plan, which states and towns I would like to visit, but no site was discovered before. It was somehow a road trip by chance with a conceptual idea behind it.
HO: Why did you select this image and what do you find most interesting about it?
JS: It was the first image of approximately 500, which I made in the following seven weeks.
HO: Is there an interesting event about this photograph that you would like to share?
JS: It was an important moment, I did this first image, and I was immediately convinced, that my visual idea would be possible and it gave me a lot of energy to go on with this project.
HO: Is there anything that you were trying to communicate through it?
JS: With the words of Gregor Jansen: "The photographs by Josef Schulz are also influenced by loss and resignation. Here something has failed whose origin remains hidden and whose context the images deliberately omit. America as the“land of unlimited possibilities”is the past, and unlimited impossibilities are now as present as the over-indebtedness of the Americans. Each beginning contains an ending and every failure contains an oddly shaped ruin." is everything said.
Josef Schulz is a Düsseldorf based photographer.
The image and interview selected are part of the editorial project "1 Photo(grapher)".
HO: Where was this photograph shot?
PR: It was shot in the room of the hotel where I was staying in Katowice, in Poland.
HO: When was it shot?
PR: It was shot in January, 2014. It's my most recent work.
HO: What type of atmosphere of Katowice were you trying to reflect through this photograph?
PR: Firstly, I think that there is a confusion between the "inside" and the "outside". Then there is a confusion between two subjects: landscape and camera. And then there is a view in the second camera which is blurred. So I really like to put these things together.
HO: What made you select this photograph?
PR: First I must say that it is not a real collage. In a way, as a photographer I see the world as a collage, it is artificial, it is built. It is sort of “fake” thing. But at the same time very real. This set is not made with Photoshop, it's made by me. I like to put things together that have no relation. Normally you see the landscape as a landscape. My view of the world is already a collage, it's a sort of a “set”. I think about the “set”, I prepare it, and then I go around the city, and I try and propose to see the world in this way.
So, this series – with the camera “inside the picture” - is something that I conceived around one year ago. I started to put the camera as a subject inside the photo that looks at the landscape. So, the world for me is not “reality”, it is a “set”. In my opinion, there is a difference in the perceiving of the world before and after digital photography arrived - let's say, ten years ago. In my view this change came with other changes in the view of the city. The growth of cities “exploded” in the last 30 years. If you go to China you perfectly understand that! It's a chaos. But nevertheless a very interesting chaos. And in my view, all of these changes - urban, technical, etc. - came at the same time. It influenced the perceiving of the world by the photographer. And as a photographer, I react to these changes through my work.
HO: What do you like the most about this photo and is there anything valuable to take out of this experience?
PR: What I like in this picture that I took - or any other that I take inside of a room or of a car - is that I can put together two experiences. The experience of the inside and the experience of the outside. If I was in a helicopter I could only see the experience of the outside through a medium (a drone or a helicopter). This is not interesting for me. I cannot compose the image as I do, through a drone.
HO: What is the importance of storytelling and narrative in your work?
PR: I think that ideas, words, or concepts lead me in taking a particular picture. That is very important in my point of view. Otherwise, I think that, while taking pictures of architecture is a very interesting thing, in the end you need to think about what you are doing as a photographer.
Paolo Rosselli is an Italian architecture photographer based in Milan.
The image and interview selected are part of the editorial project "1 Photo(grapher)".
HO: Where and when did you take this photograph?
APW: This photograph was shot in a storage warehouse a CERN, Geneva, Switzerland, on May 15. 2013, at 10:36.
HO: How was the atmosphere there?
APW: Quiet, a bit dusty, mostly overcast as there was a big warehouse door open to the left of the picture and it was a cloudy, rainy day outside.
HO: Any technical aspects about the shooting that you want to point out?
APW: I used a digital camera and a tripod, with a shutter release cable, and the available light.
HO: How did you get in?
APW: I am doing a long term personal project about the facilities at CERN, so I have some contacts there that get me access.
HO: Had you been there before?
APW: I have been to CERN before, but never in that building.
HO: What do you find most interesting about this image?
APW: The large circular object is a full scale plywood replica of part of the ATLAS Experiment, one of the particle detectors on the Large Hadron Collider, which was built to train the engineers how to install different parts of it. I'm not sure if it has been used since the construction of the detector was completed in 2008, we found it at the back of a storage warehouse. There are a lot of things that work for me in this image: the playfulness and contrast of having something so technically advanced replicated in wood; the representation of something that is the most advanced machine that has ever been built by mankind put at the back of a warehouse and forgotten about; the way the circles are aligned.
Alaistair Philip Wiper is an English photographer based in the Copenhagen.
The image and interview selected are part of the editorial project "1 Photo(grapher)".
HO: Where was this photograph shot?
LF: In Icaraí-Grajaú, in the outskirts of the southern area of ão Paulo, in Brazil.
HO: When?
LF: On November 3, 2011, at 10.28am.
HO: Is there any technical aspect of the photograph that you want to mention?
LF: The fact that shooting was done in a helicopter brought some technical issues to light. For example, to avoid a blurred image I had to use a higher speed. The use of till-shift lenses in an helicopter flight is very difficult task to be performed, because these are fully manual lenses that do not allow things like autofocus or the possibility to set the shutter speed. On the other hand, the most important in this picture is the framework. To find an extremely accurate perspective as I do in my nomal work by foot.
HO: How did the opportunity show up?
LF: The work was commissioned by the Municipal Housing Department, which was investing in many sports and leisure facilities on the outskirts of the city of São Paulo.
HO: I had been in that area before?
LF: No, but walked there a few days later.
HO: Why did you choose this image? What's most interesting about it?
LF: The photo is part of an authorial work which I'm developing right now which will be shown at an exhibition in Rio de Janeiro along with a book published in Switzerland. Also, because it has a special meaning in the context of the World Cup (2014 in Brazil).
HO: Was there anything you were trying to communicate through it?
LF: My photography work ends up structuring the reality that I photograph. In a architecture project finding this structure is always easier because it is designed by an architect and has all of those things really well defined, the informal city does not. In this image the football field/slum is "architectuized" by my way of seeing; the structure of the field goes through the slum, but it all happens in the picture, the picture creates a structured reality.
HO: Is there any peculiar story about the photograph that you want to share?
LF: I did a lenticular print this photo as a test, which consists of two overlapping extensions, at the back with paper and at the front with translucent frame, and it created a strange kind of 3D motion, which changes depending on the position of the observer. We put it in the office and everyone hated it. Two days later we had a meeting there with a curator who saw the photo and said, "Don't show this to anyone, we will make an exhibition". That is the exhibition I am working on now. Everybody sees different things in photography!
Leonardo Finotti is a Brazilian architectural photographer.
The image and interview selected are part of the editorial project "1 Photo(grapher)".
HO: Where did you shoot these photographs?
SR: These photographs were shot in the territory of Castelvetrano, in Sicily, Italy. In my work it is very common to use images together has diptychs or triptychs. The first one shows the construction of the town hall (designed by architect Santo Giunta, 2005-2008) and the second one is of the temple "E" in the archaeological area of elinunte (460-450 BC).
HO: When were they shot?
SR: The first one in the Spring of 2007, the second one in the Spring of 2011.
HO: Is there any technical aspect about the process that you want to point out?
SR: These were shot on film, like most of my work, and then scanned and printed by me.
HO: How did you get to the sites?
SR: The first access to sites was through comission. I worked as an architect in the office that designed the Castelvetranho town hall building and I often visited the archaeological area where the temple is. Both architectures have a clear place in the landscape and a relationship with the public space, although both also in very different ways.
HO: Was there something that you wanted to communicate throught these two images?
SR: I think the diptych may suggest to the viewer - an architect, or not - a reflection on the concept of ruin and of time.
The two photographs, which don't show people, showing the same territory, set a fragment on the evolution of both buildings; the power of the sequence is in the illusion that the two building can advance in relation to the finished form of a pre-existing project, something that already exists in represented in a way, or in relation to the ruin of all artifacts which slowly return - with the help of nature and of the cultural meaning attributed - to a form which can be pre-visualized.
Whatever is the fate of any of those buildings, the photographic image is at the intersection of the two timelines, and as a manifestation of the author's experience, it is a bridge with endless possibilities of reading by any viewer.
HO: Was there anything that you discovered through this diptych?
SR: I realized that the photographic work exists beyond the represented object; its existence is concrete, changeable, and it also lives beyond its author.
Sebastiano Raimondo is an Italian architect and photographer based in Palermo.
The image and interview selected are part of the editorial project "1 Photo(grapher)".
HO: Where and when was this photo taken?
OB: It was shot in Houston, state of Texas (USA), in the Summer of 2012.
HO: What were the conditions there?
OB: It was very hot and sunny and there was no wind.
HO: How did this opportunity come up?
OB: I went to Houston to shot it because it is part of my project “site specific_” about the form the contemporary city.
HO: Are there any particular technical aspects about the photo that you want to point out?
OB: Well, I was shooting from an helicopter, 500 feet above ground.
HO: Why did you select this image?
OB: I selected this image because I found it was interesting to question how and why urban planners or architects and developers decided it was right and necessary to put a kind of Aztec temple on top of a sky scrapper.
Olivo Barbieri is an artist and photographer.
The image and interview are part of the editorial project “1 Photo(grapher)”.
HO: Where and when was this photograph shot?
FN: This was shot at the “Boa Entrada” Main Country House, in São Tomé and Príncipe, April 4th, 2013, 12:38.
HO: What were the conditions on site?
FN: The weather was really hot and humid which makes the body be permanently sweating. The smell and sound of the “roça” (country house) is very peculiar. You can hear roosters, goats, kids playing, balls. Because of its configurations and because they are open glades, the very own acoustics of “roças” are special. The smell is also very characteristic, mainly because in the majority of “roças” people and animals cohabit the same spaces. In those places where cocoa is dried there is also a very particular odor.
HO: Are there any technical aspects about the shooting that you want to point out?
FN: I used a full-frame digital camera and tilt and shift lens.
HO: How did you opportunity happen?
FN: This photograph is part of a work I did for the book “As Roças de São Tomé e Príncipe” (Tinta da China, 2013) in co-authorship with architects Duarte Pape e Rodrigo Rebelo de Andrade. We visited and catalogued 122 “roças” which Duarte and Rodrigo had already identified through a research they were developing at the time. The way we got inside the “roças” was always the same: get in and try and establish a dialogue with the local communities, trying to explain the project and asking for permission to photograph the place. The people of São Tomé are very open and friendly, which meant that in the majority of times there was no problem establishing that connection that allowed us to do our work.
HO: Was this the first time you were there?
FN: It was my first time in São Tomé and Príncipe, but both Duarte and Rodrigo had already been at Boa Entrada “roça” 4 years before and they could see the glass and woodwork of this bow window completely intact.
HO: Why did you select this image?
FN: From all the ones from the “Roças de São Tomé e Príncipe” project I chose this one because I felt that this one encapsulates some of the things that make this reality unique and which should be valued urgently. On one hand it shows the richness of this heritage, on the other hand its very advanced state of degradation. Also because it shows the very social character which is so present and so inseparable from this heritage.
HO: What do you find most interesting about it?
FN: I like this project and particularly this image because of the pleasure it gave to me to do it. It made me realize what type of work do I like the most to do. Somewhere between architecture, travel and reportage.
HO: Is there anything you were trying to communicate through this image?
FN: This entrance area as well as the bow window were added to the original house. It was built in order to receive Prince Luís Filipe at the “roça” while he was visiting São Tomé and Príncipe in 1907.
Francisco Nogueira is an architectural photographer based in Lisbon.
The image and interview selected are part of the editorial project "1 Photo(grapher)".
HO: Where and when was this photo taken?
WM: This is a shot of the stage of the Schauspielhaus Köln (theater), in Cologne, Germany
HO: When was it shot?
WM: In February 2013.
HO: What were the conditions in the space?
WM: Room temperature, heavy bright-dark contrasts from the fluorescent lamps, sound-check in the background, no smell, many people bustling around.
HO: How did you get into the building?
WM: It was through a commission by the Schauspielhaus Köln, Cologne, initiated by the director, Anna Viebrock.
HO: Had you been there before?
WM: Yes, I attended a series of rehearsals for this play to do the pictures for the programme and also for the press.
HO: Why is this photograph so important for you?
WM: The subject matter of the play and of the set design contemplates very much the work of the German artist Gregor Schneider and his "Haus u r" The set design and the decor is partly a reconstruction and recombination of some of the interiors by Gregor Schneider. There is also a very iconographic photograph by the artist with a sculpture of a dead body lying on the floor. The intention was to re-enact this tableau. "My" picture stands for now at the end of a long row of other images and ideas: Gregor Schneider's initial thought and the actually built or transformed space and scenery, photographed and published by Schneider; seen by Anna Viebrock and again transformed and reproduced as the set for the Schauspielhaus Köln, with an actor playing the dead person. It seemed to me as if Sachiko turned the screw even more and did not only play a dead person but could transform herself to this very initial lifeless sculpture made only of shoes, some cloth, stockings, sponge and dust.
Walter Mair is a photographer and architect based in Zurich.
The image and interview selected are part of the editorial project "1 Photo(grapher)".
