Brazilian, born in Rio de Janeiro, and living in Minas Gerais since the age of 11. In 2007, during a stroll through the city with a friend, he pointed to a scene and said, "look at that beautiful photo." Since then, I began creating photographs of the scenes I encountered along the way. I started taking pictures without even having any equipment, unable to stop seeing everything as photographs wherever I went. In 2008, I bought my first camera and began experimenting, capturing scenes in the Ouro Preto and Mariana regions.

 

In the following years, I dedicated as much time as possible to photographing the places I visited—Ouro Preto, Recife, Salvador, Fortaleza, the Amazon, Belo Horizonte, India, Italy, France, Germany, the Czech Republic, Cuba, Argentina, and Uruguay. In this constant act of observing and recording, I became less distracted by the landscapes around me and started to understand myself better, making the senses and sensations that surround everything I do and the incredible differences in others more comprehensible.

 

Capturing an image is a delicate longing, a pursuit of the pleasure of appreciating the moment immortalized in what captivates the eye, a humble attempt to freeze the ephemeral. In various endeavors, I seek to understand the impulse to photograph, distrusting the text that does not convince, in a place without a name or apparent reason.

 

The fluidity of the images echoes the dance of the unpredictable, which, in the click, redefines perspectives. Like photos forgotten over time, taken from the drawer that adjusts to the present gaze, it's hard to pinpoint, but I feel that photography has become necessary as a fear of forgetting those moments that composed a pleasant and contemplative strangeness.

 

I avoid filling space with explanations, embracing silence in observation, distancing myself from justifications. Therefore, I let fragments of meanings and sincere vocabulary emerge impulsively. Perhaps I shouldn't reread upon finishing writing, allowing the discomfort of not filling what doesn't express itself in words to occupy its place, but I feel the need to make this text a chaotic moving image.

 

I am immersed in the confusion of being and existing, understanding that to meet a textual demand, I can say not to expect me to define with honesty what this complex and multifaceted act is, so full of masks and sincerities, that composes a moment that I define in my own cut, without even revisiting, most of the time, the person who can be whatever I want and whom I cannot describe adequately. I like this indefiniteness, as it reveals much about the differences and judgments we establish in relation to others, accepting what we create about these people.

 

An example I have is a photo to which I assigned a name and created a narrative that I tell to this day with such conviction of its existence in the smallest details, from the patched flip-flop wire to the incredible facets I highlight about that portrait of Smiling Mr. Joaquim. I always start by affirming that he is an incredible and light-hearted human being, and then I narrate how he became a self-taught architect, drawing modern houses without even owning a cellphone. I develop the story by talking about the grandfather who designed and built most of the houses on the street, becoming famous and respected as Dr. José Casarista. I convey knowledge and values through phrases that I now can't remember grammatically, but I can say that they are like proverbs created by him, with the understanding and rigidity of not deviating from the respect and value that these teachings imposed, memorized by all his children and grandchildren. Furthermore, I add that he challenges a girl to name him with a reference word, and so on.

 

To conclude what I cannot conclude, but I follow Mr. Joaquim's idea when he was departing and directed a thought to this moment: "Take care of your own with the eyes of others, for they will make you eternal memories."

 

What I want to express, even without a conclusion, is that chance should not be defined with inattentive eyes; feel what is truly possible to feel, without labeling, and understand the other who has been constructed by the image created by their close ones. Even if all of Mr. Joaquim's children and grandchildren know by heart the phrases for every situation in life, time dissolves and demands that they adapt, understanding these transformations with the respect that time teaches. Photography sheds light on lived or invented memories, full of meaning. How this happens and what to say about it, I do not know and should not try to explain. I simply continue to be propelled by these chance creations that life draws and photography paints. It's not an original idea, perhaps a bit cheesy, but it's good for today; tomorrow may be even worse. In the best real that I can be, without the need to tell or invent.