As a photographer, however, I still find cars interesting to observe: after all, even after losing faith, you might still marvel at the statues in the chapel, the admiration at present directed towards their aesthetic qualities rather than the belief they once inspired. Occasionally, cars will appear in my images, and I’ve gathered a few of these photographs for the car week that photographer is organising on Substack.

In Florence, Italy

In Lisbon, Portugal

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To see more from the car week, go to https://randomcapture.substack.com/p/carweek

That’s all for now, folks. The Tales will be back soon.

Pierre François D.

Avenida da Liberdade (Freedom Avenue) is one of the main boulevards in the centre of Lisbon. Sometimes presented as the local version of the Parisian avenue des Champs-Elysées, it is lined with brand boutiques and, more importantly, planted with tall trees that provide shade and a much-welcome respite from the heat. For photographers, the resulting pools of harsh sunlight at crossroads and smaller pockets of light through the foliage are opportunities as much as challenges.

On Saturday 7th June, freedom paved the way for an animated walking ode to tolerance and diversity as the Lisboa Pride march followed the Avenida all the way to downtown and the river Tejo.

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That’s all for now, folks. Good to have you on board as ever.

Pierre François D.

This is a post with photographs only: i have been directing the lens towards the games of the sun light falling on vegetation, with a fascination for strong contrast and the intricate textures of trunks, leaves, and flowers.

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Lisbon Street Photo Festival: call open until June 10th

In Darkrooms magazine

Thank you for taking part in the Tales of Ink and Light. It’s good to have you on board.

May you be well, may you be happy.

Pierre François D.

A warm welcome to new subscribers, and warm greetings to you all.

This post is inspired by a visit of the water distribution system that sustained the growth of Lisbon in the 18th century. During 3 hours, we walked through the galleries of an aqueduct, underground galleries and majestic reservoirs. It was quite fascinating and fun. Later though, when i looked at the pictures i made, a different stream of thought echoed in my mind.

How long will it take
— how many hours days weeks

Where and when 
shall i 
emerge 
from the obscurity?

I’m going into a tunnel
— is what you say to get rid of an irritating correspondent on the phone.

Where and when 
shall i 
emerge 
from the obscurity?

You dig tunnels to reach the treasure vault
and travel back to the light of day 
transformed by your newly-acquired wealth.

Where and when 
shall i 
emerge 
from the obscurity?

Or are you digging a crawlway in a secretive attempt to engineer an escape path from a high-security cell?

Where and when 
shall i 
emerge 
from the obscurity?

As i walk hesitantly under a feeble artificial light, 
i wonder
— have i spent all my life in a tunnel
trapped between these heavy brick walls under the ground?

Where and when 
shall i 
emerge 
from the obscurity?

All images made with an iPhone (raw files captured with Camera M, processed in LR).

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Lisbon Street Photo Festival in September

Thank you for taking part in the Tales of Ink and Light. It’s good to have you on board.

Pierre François D.

It so happened that i had the chorus to a Richmond Fontaine’s song stuck in my head.

A night in the city

The city at night

It was sort of on repeat, becoming obsessive. Had to find photographs to match these few words. So here goes: a walk through the city at night.

That’s all for this time, folks. Thank you for taking part in the Tales of Ink and Light: it’s good to have you on board.

A very warm welcome to new subscribers, and warm greetings to you all.

Today, i’m presenting an exploration of how i have connected with Lisbon over the course of the last four years, a reflection on my growing sense of familiarity, intimacy even, with the city.

I have defined this project through the metaphor of skin as a surface that takes you beyond the surface: the skin of the city, like human skin, is a narrative fabric.

These images show urban surfaces, urban landscapes flattened to games of geometry and textures, all in colour. There is no human being in the images but the images are about a real city, as it exists and as it is lived. It is a realistic approach, devoid of embellishment but not necessarily of wonder.

skin is the surface that takes you beyond the surface

              touching someone’s skin is an act of communication

there are no words            you might get it wrong

it can be subtle              you might not notice all that passes

shaking hands
you form an idea about their nature or their current emotional state

there are contacts that cause confusion
like a sudden excess of information that momentarily drowns your mental system
and there are massages that comfort the whole being

skin is a narrative fabric where lines and wrinkles tell of age
        scars of past battles
                 tan and makeup of lifestyle
            tattoos of hopes and dreams
skin is information
skin is transmission
skin is intimacy

i touched the skin of the city with the camera

i walked beyond the hotspots
i walked beyond love at first sight
the obvious beauty
the picturesque flows of the ‘gram

seeing the surface of the city
touching the skin of the city
seeing the urban surface is similar to touching skin
i have entered into a deeper learning
i have reached a deeper understanding
i have achieved a deeper intimacy with the city

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I previously mentioned an early stage of the project in the Tales:

Get the ebook ‘touching the skin of a city’

• 43 photographs | 2 texts | . pdf file, 20 Mo

• Get the ebook (.pdf) at https://inkandlight.gumroad.com/l/touching-skin? for 7,5 EUR or, for the time being, pay what you like.

Thank you for taking part in the Tales of Ink and Light. It’s good to have you on board.

Pierre François D.

A warm welcome to new subscribers, and warm greetings to you all.

As far as i can recall, i’ve always held the belief that if life ever put you in a situation where you had to build a town, you would need a river to place it by. Now, this is clearly a case of very low probability, and it may be a pointless notion...

Today’s post presents a few images from recent morning flâneries by the river Tejo.

Early morning walks by the riverside

                     The fog’s games of hide and seek 

                                      The majestic glory of the rising sun

Just some of the good things 
that can come before a pain au chocolat. 

‘I'm just there, floating, surrounded by an elemental force. Fog is a space and a sensation - somewhere to be, something to touch but never to hold. Its unpredictable momentariness means that every foggy instant is precious - an offering of sorts. I can't step out of the fog and come back to it later: it won't be there. There is only now, the present. Fog is meditation: a clearing of the mind, a condensing of the experience of the moment. In the fog is nothing but the rhythm of the breath and the counsel of the senses. To be in the fog is to surrender. This is where I am most myself - my true self, my fog-self, is who I find there.’

(Laura Pashby, in her book Chasing Fog)

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Thank you for taking part in the Tales of Ink and Light. It’s good to have you on board.

Pierre François D.

A warm welcome to new subscribers, and warm greetings to all.

In a previous story, i wrote about entering a palace with almost no expectation and being enchanted by the visit. By contrast, when i took a train to Coimbra (about 170 km north of Lisbon), i probably had a too precise notion of what i would find there.

(If this is not entirely visible in your email software, you can click on “view entire message”, read it online or in the Substack app.)

On my way to one of the oldest universities of the continent, i entertained visions of labyrinthine libraries where volumes of mythical wisdom would adorn intricate wooden shelves, and i expected to perambulate centuries-old corridors filled with the sort of austere yet pure atmosphere that belongs equally to the tops of mountains and the relentless quest for the advancement of knowledge.

And to be sure, the old library of the University of Coimbra is a vault of treasures … However, visits are timed and short. Most inconveniently, i ended up sharing my 20-minute slot with a flock of tourists and their robotic tour guide. For my misfortune, theirs was one of the very few languages i can understand. As we were allowed in the first floor, a few of them spotted a library staff member working on an ancient volume, and started behaving with the idiotic excitement of a crowd at the zoo, speaking loudly of the employee as of an exotic creature… Later on, during the 10 minutes we were allotted to visit the final floor of the magnificent library, their ranks of bored faces colonised all the space, which made it uneasy to wander in the rooms. Without mercy, the foolish herd ruined the sense of wonder that i had planned for when i bought my ticket.

Students sport the most elegant traditional costume of an austere black cape that evoke silhouettes of a time long gone, and they play the guitar and sing in the street, and it's all very romantic. But at night time, they heed the call of heavy, grainy beats that pour out of low-quality loudspeakers and drown the town, and they hurry to the most mundane drinking sessions, all elegance abandoned.

I had not thought that the university district would be dominated by martial edifices erected in the 1950s. It was like stepping down at the wrong stop on a ride on the time train — i had bought a ticket for the Middle Ages and i found myself in a dystopian scenario, concerned almost that at every street corner i might run into alien troops on patrol.

There were brief moments during the 3-day trip when my hopes of exploring mythical places were momentarily restored. One of such was when i walked in the peace of the cloister attached to the old cathedral. Another happened when i paused in front of the entry to a law faculty, reminding me that i was once a trembling ignorant entering a similar hall of legal science, a passage that i thought would make me a worthy man. Ah! Illusions who guided my path, illusions once so bright as to blind me, what have become of you?

And so it happened that, against the rough texture of modern day Coimbra, my delusions were grated like common parmiggiano and fell into crumbs that were quickly washed away by the rain. I realised that i lived in dreams no more, awaken to reality and still anxious for a compass now that the visions that had so far guided me had fallen into obsolescence. I came to wonder if the traces left by plants, dust or rain on walls were the writings i should strive to decipher but it proved to be impossible to make any sense of them.

(All this said, it was a very pleasant 3-day trip.)

Recommendations

Here in Lisbon, ‘the movie m8ker’, a friend and a co-organiser of the Lx photo community, has launched a YouTube channel in which he tells the story of capturing the energy and light of the city as a (relatively) new resident.

Here’s one where i appear just long enough to say a few silly things.

Watch, like and follow at https://www.youtube.com/@MovieM8ker

In a combination of texts and photographs, the Tales of Ink and Light are a collection of poems, short stories (fiction or documentary) or essays that explore the strange beauty of our world. From portraits of individual lives to musings on social justice, from travel diaries to an exploration of the intricacies of identity, the Tales are a cauldron of meaning-making. The newsletter is published weekly-ish, one week in English and the other in French as les Contes d’encre et de lumière.

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Thank you for taking part in the Tales of Ink and Light. It’s good to have you on board.

Pierre François D.

A rummaging in the dusty corners of a hard disk brought back photographs of a 2019 rehearsal of Mozart’s Don Giovanni by the Rogue Opera. It had been much fun at the time; i also remember thinking that the images had managed to do some justice to the intense work of the artists on stage.

The Rogue Opera — Don G. — rehearsal, 15th Nov. 2019.

• Don Giovanni - Jack Holton

• Don Ottavio - Robin Whitehouse

• Leporello - André Andrade

• Donna Elvira - Bronwen Stephens-Harding

• Il Commendatore - Ian Shenstone

• Zerlina - Maya Colwell

• Donna Anna - Alexandra Cowell

• Masetto - Aleksi Koponen

In a combination of texts and photographs, the Tales of Ink and Light are a collection of poems, short stories (fiction or documentary) or essays that explore the strange beauty of our world. From portraits of individual lives to musings on social justice, from travel diaries to an exploration of the intricacies of identity, the Tales are a cauldron of meaning-making. The newsletter is published weekly-ish, one week in English and the other in French as les Contes d’encre et de lumière.

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Thank you for taking part in the Tales of Ink and Light. It’s good to have you on board.

Pierre François D.

A short train ride from Lisbon followed by a 20-minute stroll from the station, and here is the National Palace of Queluz, an exuberant residence to three generations of the royal family of Portugal. Designed in architectural styles that range from baroque to neo-classicism, this is a seemingly infinite succession of mirror-covered walls, elaborate high ceilings, intricate chandeliers and streaks of sunlight falling through the elegant windows.

Evocations of the luxurious lifestyle and intrigues of any court, often leaving untold the fact that it all happened at the expense of ordinary folks, tend to cause a feeling of revulsion that borders on a call to arms and revolution. But on that sunny winter day, i happened to be the only visitor to have shown up at the door and i had the extravagant palace all to myself for most of my time there. It had been only the faintest curiosity that had taken me to Queluz on an otherwise unoccupied week day, and i had little expectations as i entered. Revolutionary velleities were quickly silenced by the rhythm of the natural light intertwined with the elegant and subtle balance of the ageing edifice.

A slow, 4-hour walk through the building and the gardens felt like one of the good concerts, when you’re carried away by a powerful energy that you don’t necessarily understand but whose beauty and depth are undeniable. As when playing a vinyl record, cracks in the painting, stains on the tapestry were the sort of imperfections that contributed to the majesty of the work. At the end, as i exited, i could feel that i was taking away some inner light that was the lasting echo of the glorious celebration i had just attended.

In a combination of texts and photographs, the Tales of Ink and Light are a collection of poems, short stories (fiction or documentary) or essays that explore the strange beauty of our world. From portraits of individual lives to musings on social justice, from travel diaries to an exploration of the intricacies of identity, the Tales are a cauldron of meaning-making. The newsletter is published weekly-ish, one week in English and the other in French as les Contes d’encre et de lumière.

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Thank you for taking part in the Tales of Ink and Light. It’s good to have you on board.

Pierre François D.

Here’s the second and final part of the highlights of 2024, neither a ‘best of’ nor an evaluation, simply things (images, places, bits of photo projects) that i’m happy were part of my life. (In case you’ve missed it, part 1 is here).

It would be entirely in tune with the season but i won’t list good resolutions. I can however share that, centuries after everyone else, i’ve started reading Atomic Habits: so far i’ve much enjoyed the reminder that a solid process is a more effective engine than goal-setting.

Recently, I had postcards printed ouf of 5 of my images and i quite like the result. To kick off the year, i’m giving away one pack of these (this giveaway is for subscribers only - details below).

(By the way, if the newsletter is not entirely visible in your email software, you can click on “view entire message” or read it online or on the Substack app.)

8. Playing with film again

This time, 35mm film and the good ol’ Olympus OM-1.

9. The Days are Numbered

Among a number of inspiring exhibitions: at MAAT, os dias estão numerados by Daniel Blaufuks. The same day, also at MAAT, All the World’s a Stage, a William Klein exhibition.

10. Protests

Really, streets are for people, not cars.

11. Lisbon, you know

A few days ago, I overheard someone ask, why are you staying? And I thought, it might simply be the light, you know. It might simply be the light.

12. Chisinau

There were trips to Chisinau, Moldova.

13. I visited the Palácio Nacional de Queluz

And i was thrilled to have the place almost all to myself (more on that soon).

14. A museum of void

The Museum of Design was empty at its reopening.

15. Coimbra

In Coimbra, i did not find what i had expected (more on that soon).

16. I made photographs in cemeteries

I released a small book with my photographs of graveyards. And during my latest visit at the ‘cemetery of pleasures’, that cat did not look too pleased to see me again.

17. It’s all a bit of a blur now

Now and then, i’ve been experimenting with spreading some vaseline on the lens’ filter, a way of shifting the attention away from sharpness and towards touches of light and colour.

And this concludes the highlights of 2024. Wishing you all a splendid 2025!

Giveway: 5 postcards

I had postcards printed out of 5 of my images and the result is quite convincing.

I’m giving away one pack of 5. To enter the draw, reply to the question below (either in a comment or by email) by 15 Jan. at midnight (Lisbon time). This is only open to subscribers.

What is the missing word in the expression below?

Lisboa, cidade triste e …

In a combination of texts and photographs, the Tales of Ink and Light are a collection of poems, short stories (fiction or documentary) or essays that explore the strange beauty of our world. From portraits of individual lives to musings on social justice, from travel diaries to an exploration of the intricacies of identity, the Tales are a cauldron of meaning-making. The newsletter is published weekly-ish, one week in English and the other in French as les Contes d’encre et de lumière.

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Thank you for taking part in the Tales of Ink and Light. It’s good to have you on board.

Pierre François D.

P.-S.

Don’t forget to enter the draw to win a pack of 5 postcards.

This will go out on the day after Christmas, possibly one of the quieter days in this animated period, and i hope the end of the year is being gentle on you. On my end, resistance was futile: i yielded to the seasonal temptation of looking in the rearview mirror. As a result, i’m sharing highlights of the 12 last months, neither a ‘best of’ nor an evaluation, simply things (images, places, bits of photo projects) that i’m happy were part of my life. This will be in 2 parts: the second will be with you in a couple of weeks.

In an expression of my gratitude for my readers, a small present awaits you until the end of the year (unless you got it already? See below).

(By the way, if the newsletter is not entirely visible in your email software, you can click on “view entire message” or read it online or on the Substack app.)

1. Cais das Colunas

Playing with the Lomography Lubitel and medium-format film. This is probably one of the most photographed spot in Lisbon, the quay of the columns, yet i do not get tired of it.

2. Sri Lanka

In February, there was a trip to Sri Lanka.

3. A laughing dog

When i visited in March, my father’s dog showed little interest in collaborating to his portrait and generally remained unimpressed by my photographic endeavours.

4. A few days in the North of Portugal

Braga and Guimarães.

5. The 25 de Abril bridge

The iPhone revealed geometry and abstraction under the bridge.

6. The estuary of Tejo

Three photowalks in the estuary of river Tejo. This free e-book presents images by the participating photographers.

7. The 25 de Abril 1974 turned 50

To be continued …

touching the skin of a city

It is a process of importance to me, getting to know the place where i live, exploring layer after layer towards a level of actual familiarity. As a key achievement in this project, i have just released touching the skin of a city, a new ebook in which i present a series of images of urban surfaces that express my growing sense of intimacy with the city of Lisbon.

I’m very happy to announce that, as a gesture of gratitude to my subscribers, i’m offering touching the skin of a city for free until the end of the year. Click here and use the code TILSKIN at checkout (offer valid until 31st Dec. 2024).

In a combination of texts and photographs, the Tales of Ink and Light are a collection of poems, short stories (fiction or documentary) or essays that explore the strange beauty of our world. From portraits of individual lives to musings on social justice, from travel diaries to an exploration of the intricacies of identity, the Tales are a cauldron of meaning-making. The newsletter is published weekly-ish, one week in English and the other in French as les Contes d’encre et de lumière.

Subscribe now

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Leave a comment

Thank you for taking part in the Tales of Ink and Light. It’s good to have you on board.

Pierre François D.

P.-S.

Don’t leave without clicking here to get my new ebook touching the skin of a city forfree: you simply need to use the code TILSKIN at checkout (offer valid until 31st Dec. 2024).

The Tales are back after an interlude that was longer than i had anticipated and i’m delighted to be writing to you again. A warm welcome to new subscribers and greetings to you all. It is a pleasure to have you here and i want to express my gratitude with a small gift (see below).

The cold is settling in for good. During the day, it feels colder inside the house than in the street. There are many reasons to go out: the winter fair, a couple of exhibitions… Brisk walk in the wintry air — red cheeks. I tend to stay away from the news, just checking headlines once or twice a week. May you live in interesting times.

‘May you live in interesting times…’ Sometimes presented as a Chinese curse, the expression seems to originate from 19th-century UK political parlance. It is often used ironically to speak of times of turmoil.

Ours are certainly interesting times in that sense. Everywhere you look, the world appears to be crumbling down in violence, economic disparity and terrifying uncertainty. Choking in an atmosphere of angst, people confusedly grasp to ideologies and worldviews that trigger further violence and aggravate inequalities. We are told that the end is very near and we’ll buy anything that serves as an escape.

Nervous and fearful is the tune that plays on repeat on mainstream loudspeakers, the voices that fashion the dark air du temps. There are, however, things that fly under the radar, things you might call seeds of a better tomorrow.

Thanks to the work and fights of activists, artists and researchers, we’ve come to understand the extent and severity of the harms caused by gender, racialised and class discrimination. We’ve come to understand that patriarchy and colonisation are forces of oppression and mass destruction. We’ve come to understand the need for reparation. We perceive the importance of self-care and mental health. We’re learning. Slowly.

Ours may be times of confusion. Some may not know what to hold on to when institutions, authorities and traditions appear to lose all credibility. Some may find safety in the vicious application of obsolete rules. There is a truth, though, that remains unamplified, a whisper that you won’t hear unless you pay attention, and that is that there is joy and liberation in the dismantling of rusty statues and obsolescent mind structures.

The times are uncertain and disturbing. But in truth we know what to do, don’t we?

On 23rd Nov. in Lisbon, young activists of the Climaximo movement organised a protest against inaction in the face of climate change. Their slogan was a call to ‘stop while we can’ and to ‘break normalcy’.

Participation was low, at about 300 marchers. Downtown on the same day, a much denser crowd gathered for the launch of the Christmas illuminations. In line with recent trends in Western democracies, the march was surrounded by a heavy presence of police in warlike gear, some even openly wearing firearms. A couple of officers were filming the protesters at close range. A team of observers from Amnesty International and, as i like to think, a few photographers contributed to keeping some sort of check on the use of force. No violence erupted even in the moments of tension.

The organisers deployed an impressive sense of organisation and a beautiful energy. While their call was not answered by a multitude, they achieved their objective to occupy a square on one of the main avenues for a couple of hours and the action received a fair amount of media coverage.

Within my small group of photographers, i could sense admiration for the determination of these young protesters and a satisfaction to have taken part in the march.

In another action of playful civil disobedience, the same group recently switched off the Christmas lights in various streets of the city.

touching the skin of a city

It is a process of importance to me, getting to know the place where i live, exploring layer after layer towards a level of actual familiarity. As a key achievement in this project, i have just released touching the skin of a city, a new ebook in which i present a series of images of urban surfaces that express my growing sense of intimacy with the city of Lisbon.

I’m very happy to announce that, as a gesture of gratitude to my subscribers, i’m offering touching the skin of a city for free until the end of the year. Click here and use the code TILSKIN at checkout (offer valid until 31st Dec. 2024).

In a combination of texts and photographs, the Tales of Ink and Light are a collection of poems, short stories (fiction or documentary) or essays that explore the strange beauty of our world. From portraits of individual lives to musings on social justice, from travel diaries to an exploration of the intricacies of identity, the Tales are a cauldron of meaning-making. The newsletter is published weekly-ish, one week in English and the other in French as les Contes d’encre et de lumière.

Subscribe now

Share Tales of Ink and Light

Thank you for taking part in the Tales of Ink and Light. It’s good to have you on board.

Pierre François D.

P.-S.

Don’t leave without clicking here to get my new ebook touching the skin of a city for free: you simply need to use the code TILSKIN at checkout (offer valid until 31st Dec. 2024).

About one year ago, i started the Tales of Ink and Light.

Armed with nothing but a desire to speak to an audience, i opened an account on Substack and started tinkering. I intended to keep it experimental to a certain degree, that is, i meant to make room for evolution and reflection along the way.

I can see at least a few lessons i’ve learnt and i have various thoughts about the platform and the medium of newsletters — but this is not what i want to discuss here. What appears very clearly, when i look back, is that it’s been fantastic, and the most important thing I want to express at this moment is simply my heartfelt gratitude to all who read and engage with my articles.

Thank you for taking part in the Tales. It’s really good to have you on board.

I’m taking a short break. I’ll be back soon.

Pierre François

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Looking back: a selection of 5 articles

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When you wander in urban public spaces, you’re given guidelines by road signs and you get instructions from advertising boards of all sizes. If you’re moving leisurely, you may notice that certain streets host rich open-air art galleries. These days, some of the street art is commissioned by public authorities, but there remains lawless graffiti, that is, complex graphic elaborations based on a word that signifies the identity of a person or group.

And then, almost devoid of aesthetic quality, there are myriads of words that erupted on walls like thoughts only partially formed or suspended screams. Quickly and roughly painted, they will speak only to those who accept to listen carefully.

It’s usually easy to take a quick snap, although sometimes you need to include the context in the frame, as it really gives the words a particular meaning. The outcome is most often a rudimentary image.

At the moment you spot it, one of them raw street words might resonate with a day’s thought or plant the seed of an idea in your mind. But why collect them? And, as for pebbles you pick up at the seaside, how do you select the ones you keep? Glimpses into incomplete stories, protest slogans, quips or groaners, they’re no more than the scattered pieces of a non-existing puzzle.

Or might they be pages ripped out of the diary of an invisible person you might meet some day? The bread crumbs that guide you to a fabulous destination? The emerged signs that tell the legends of an underground universe?

Here goes: a few images from a never-ending hoarding process.

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These two in the same street, a few weeks apart.

And if this all sounds too serious…

Just one suggestion this time:

• The PhotoEthics Centre has published Eight Key Lessons in Photography Ethics based on 48 episodes of their podcast. Absolutely worth a read if you regularly hold a camera in your hands.

Thank you for taking part in the Tales of Ink and Light. It’s good to have you on board.

Pierre François

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A decisive factor in my decision to move to Lisboa was the poetic atmosphere that i had felt while walking up and down its streets during a few short-ish stays. Often when i leave the house, i am unexpectedly reminded of that impalpable yet intensely real thing that exudes from the city.

I find it hard to define (and there is also the fact that i’d be reluctant to name it with precision, even if it were possible). It may be the colours of the walls, it may be the light, it may be a smell, it may be certain clothes people wear, it may be the sounds, it may be attitudes or certain sentences, and the river is certainly a part of it. It is these small things that suddenly appear to incarnate the soul of the place and make you think — oh, yes, indeed, i’m here, this is it. It is the sort of inescapable feeling that seems impossible to describe and that you can only understand if you’ve experienced it personally time and time again.

‘Lisbon, you know…’ is a sentence i read in a poem that appears in Lisboa, cidade triste e alegre (‘Lisbon, sad and joyful city’), a photobook that started as a series of booklets sent to subscribers by post (at the time, it was a way to circumvent the censorship of the dictatorial regime) and later rose to fame after being prominently featured in Martin Parr and Gerry Badger’s History of the Photobook. A modern facsimile edition was published in 2018, years after the death of the authors.

Nowadays, this book is celebrated as a remarkable achievement in many ways (there’s an excellent documentary on RTP if you understand Portuguese).

It results from a collaboration between two friends, both architects and amateur photographers, who decided in 1953 to make pictures of their town together. Victor Palla and Costa Marins found inspiration in Italian cinema and their work has been described as the great neo-realist film that was never made about Lisbon.

One of them used a Leica, the other a Rolleicord, but none of their images are individually signed. Similarly, their commentary of their photographs, a combination of technical details, brief accounts of the circumstances in which the images were made and musings on the art of photography, is written in a collective voice.

The two authors did everything themselves. Quite originally for the time, the design includes the insertion of pages of different widths as well as foldout pages.

It could be interesting to compare the pictures of Victor Palla and Costa Martins with the photographs made at the same period by another Portuguese photographer, Artur Pastor (i wrote about a collection of his images in a previous post). Where Pastor’s photography tends to show an idealised view on the country’s working classes, the photos in Lisboa, cidade triste e alegre are interested in life as it was lived, in small daily moments as they happened.

The authors conceived their shared work as a ‘graphic poem’. The photographs are accompanied by poems by various authors, either pre-existing or written for the occasion. To me, it is a great example of how words and pictures can work together to tell a story. And although the book dates back to a time long gone and represents a past i never knew, i find in its pages something of that inescapable and impalpable nature of the city where i live.

I am curious: is there a poem or a photobook (or a book, or a movie…) that somehow captures the essence of the place where you live? And was it part of your reasons for living there?

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Lisbon, you know …

Alguém diz com lentidão:
«Lisboa, sabes...»
Eu sei. É uma rapariga descalça e leve.
um vento súbito e claro nos cabelos, 
algumas rugas finas a espreitar-lhe os olhos, 
a solidão aberta nos lábios e nos dedos, 
descendo degraus e degraus
e degraus até ao rio.
Eu sei. E tu, sabias?
(Eugénio de Andrade)

                                                   Somebody says slowly: 
                                                   'Lisbon, you know...'
                                                   I know. It is a girl, barefoot and light,
                                                   a sudden, light breeze in her hair,
                                                   a few fine wrinkles peeking out of her eyes,
                                                   the open solitude on her lips and fingers,
                                                   going down steps and steps
                                                   and steps to the the river.
                                                   I know. And you, did you know? 

A few suggestions

Listening to the radio used to be one of my favourite ways to hear about the world and discover new things. I liked that that you could listen while doing something else: as it relied only on one sense, it did not require you to stay still, and left you with a wide margin of freedom in many ways. I admired how voices and soundscapes could convey such a lively impression of things. I now listen to podcasts with a similar pleasure. Here’s three things that i enjoyed recently.

• This conversation with Arturo Soto on the Frames podcast had been recommended to me by @victory_sauce, who rightly thought that i’d be interested in how Soto’s work combines words and pictures.

• Sometimes the timing is perfect: i listened to an interview with David Campany (in which he describes his professional itinerary for Les Voix de la photo) the day after viewing the William Klein exhibition that he curated for the MAAT in Lisbon: The whole world is a stage.

• In this conversation on the Photoethics podcast, Anastasia Taylor-Lind, a photojournalist and a poet who is engaged in long-term coverage of the situation in eastern Ukraine, insists on the importance of making time to work slowly when reporting on situations of conflict. I had been touched by how her collection of poems, One Language, speaks of violence in war and personal history.

the drama on the stage within

My little book the drama on the stage within is available on amaz0n and in a higher-end quality on Blurb. You can find out more about the project here. If you get a copy (an excellent way to support my work), please leave a review: it is really helpful.

Thank you for taking part in the Tales of Ink and Light, it’s good to have you on board.

Pierre François

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the drama on the stage within

My little book the drama on the stage within is available on amaz0n. You can find out more about the project here or in this previous post:

If you get a copy (an excellent way to support my work), please leave a review: it is really helpful.

That’s all for today, folks. Thank you for taking part in the Tales of Ink and Light.

Pierre François

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Gil Ribeiro is a Portuguese street photographer with a background in cinematography. Beyond the humorous tone of some of his images, his work possesses a distinctive atmosphere that led the French magazine 6 Mois to title a selection ‘the mysteries of Lisbon’ (2022 summer issue). The zine published by Bump Books, a prized item in my small collection, presents a very nice collection (it is sold out but you can see some images on the website of the publisher). I’m thrilled that he kindly allowed me to include a few photographs to accompany our conversation.

The day we met for the interview, i was running a few minutes late. As i waited at the traffic light, i spotted Gil on the other side of the avenue: in the warm light of the end of the afternoon, camera in hand, he was looking for reflections in the large tinted windows of a tall modern edifice on the praça Marquês de Pombal…

Q. By contrast with others who adapt their approach to the specificities of each project, i would describe you as a photographer with a recognisable style. What is it that you’re looking for when you’re making images in the streets?

In Lisbon or anywhere else, my goal is the same. It's the same process: trying to find unique moments, special moments. That is what I like. I have this need to have people in the picture, because that makes it impossible to replicate. You can take a beautiful photo of a place, with the right light, with bright colors, but if there's a person, they bring an organic element, a storytelling component, and they give the image that stamp of, like, no one else is ever going to take this image. That’s the holy grail for me.

There are photos that I take and if I show them to someone who knows my work they might not recognize it as mine. I get attracted by lots of different things on the street, it's automatic: colors that draw my eye, like this lady here with a green dress [he points at a woman passing by] — green, yellow, red, blue…

I like having a clean background in the sense of the structure of the image, making sure that there's not too much clutter. And then, connections or juxtapositions between elements: sometimes, you see something, you have an idea of what can happen, you think that you can play with it and rearrange it to create something absurd or humorous… and then you wait for it.

I never spend more than 15 minutes in one place, then I leave. I’m not patient, I guess I’m a lucky person, always have been.

Q. You’re a fan of Harry Gruyaert, i think. What is it that you find inspirational in his work?

I don’t really have one or one or two specific photographers that I turn to as my main inspiration anymore, there are many and that also changes with time, but he is definitely one of the top photographers that I like. The colors are incredible, colors and light, and really strong atmosphere as well. I also did my first trip to Morocco a little bit because of Gruyaert: I was thinking, if this is going to look like that, it is worth going.

Q. You have an exhibition that is opening soon, titled ‘a series of unfortunate events’. What will you be showing — what is the pitch?

The title speaks of nothing else than the decisive moment, right, it’s all about being at the right place at the right time, with the things happening in front of the camera also arranged in the right way in the frame. The majority of my photos are special moments, unique moments that happened at a certain place at a certain time. In the exhibition, there is a total of 55 images from six different countries, most of them from Lisbon. We found a title that worked well to bring all the images together.

With the people helping me, I have found sponsors and that has allowed me to print on my favourite paper (Hahnemühle Fine Art Pearl), which is slightly glossy. As there will be no glass on the images, I think it will look fantastic in the room.

Based on the space itself and also depending on the subject of the images, the prints vary in sizes, from the smallest that are 20cm by 30 cm to some that are 1m by 1,5m and will be hanging in the middle of the room, and other large images in the garden. It is so different from Instagram or a screen: there are images that just deserve to be shown in a large format.

Q. There is something in the poster for the exhibition that hints at a theatre play, a comedy. Am i right to assume that this was the intention?

Not really. It was more of a practical thing. First, a poster has to be vertical, and most of my images are horizontal. So we had to find images that would still look good cropped in that format. Then, with the title and text, you also take away a lot of information from the image. This one, i liked immediately: the look of surprise, the beautiful cinematic atmosphere, it combines so well with the title: it just fits like a glove.

Q. I understand that you’ve worked with a curator for the preparation of the exhibition. What was the collaboration like?

I’ve worked with Constanza (Insta). Obviously, sometimes in the process, we had different opinions, and she might pick images that I was not considering, or the other way round. We just had different views. Then we talked. It went both ways but I think it happened more that she would give me her reasons and I would “concede”. There is also that photographers have this emotional attachment to the moment when you made the image, the light, the atmosphere, the emotions of that moment. She could look at the images more objectively. The same happened with the combination of certain images.

It is a bit strange at first, but then, seeing your images through someone else’s eyes, it opens your mind, it opens you to new perspectives. You have to let go of your previous conceptions of your images and accept a different take on them. It’s been a really good experience: hearing another perspective and discovering that it actually also works in a different way than what you had thought.

Q. What was it like to have somebody write about your work?

Well, first, I’m not good at writing. And this is sensitive for me, because very often i’ll read a text in an art exhibition and think, this sounds very pretentious, you know, just artsy-fartsy stuff that is very blown-up and detached from reality. I did not want anything like that. I wanted something simple and straightforward. So we talked about the different versions of the text.

And the text that will be on the wall in the exhibition, and a longer version in the booklet, i would never write something like this. That is how she sees my work. I would just never express it like that but when I read it, it makes perfect sense. There are passages that are just spot on. It's just that I would never be able to express it like that.

• Website: https://gilribeiro.com/

• Instagram: @gileres

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The exhibition A Series of UnFortunate Events opens on 19th Sept. (18h) and runs until 18th Oct. at the Biblioteca de Alcântara in Lisbon.

Ah oui, au fait:

Every other week, the French version of les Tales is at https://lescontes.substack.com.

the drama on the stage within

My little book the drama on the stage within is available on amaz0n. You can find out more about the project here or in this previous post:

If you get a copy (an excellent way to support my work), please leave a review: it is really helpful.

Thank you for taking part in the Tales of Ink and Light. It’s good to have you on board.

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Words in the City

There is a paradox inherent to a group photo walk because it consists in bringing together people who have in common a practice that is often solitary. Photographers frequently find themselves isolated in their own mind when they’re making pictures, misunderstood and left behind by the rest of the world (including their loved ones). But when they get together, the eagerness to socialise with peers gets in the way of putting the camera to work. The paradoxical peak occurs when a group of photographers becomes impatient with the one who is totally engaged in the making of an image and delays the whole gang.

Yet, photo walks are fun for at least three reasons: photography, walking (‘solvitur ambulando’, you know1) and the company of folks with a common passion. When i’m guiding one, i like to suggest a theme: it gives the ‘photo-walkers’ something to look for with their camera and makes it easier to put together a (relatively) consistent collective collection of images afterwards. Setting participants on the same quest also brings them somewhat closer.

‘Words in the City’ is the theme for a series of photo walks in Lisbon over the summer: an invitation to include words (graffiti, advertising, road signs, etc) in images, so that the words become part of the story. Come September, a selection of images will provide the material for a zine or an ebook. Participants in the walks will be invited to submit a story consisting of one to maximum five images that include words found in the urban scenery.

Another manner to present a selection of images will be ‘exquisite corpses’ — this is not about venturing into forensic photography, but a creative game invented by the French surrealists back in their days: le cadavre exquis (which translates literally as the exquisite corpse) is ‘a method by which a collection of words or images is collectively assembled. Each collaborator adds to a composition in sequence (…) by being allowed to see only the end of what the previous person contributed’ (Wikipedia).

In the Words in the City ‘cadavre exquis’, each participant will in turn contribute one photograph to a series, having only seen the previous picture. At present, i am impatiently curious to see how it will turn out.

With this image made during one of the Words in the City walks, i was interested in the juxtaposition of the name of the street (‘rua das pretas’ translates as ‘street of the black women’) with the black model on the fashion advertising poster. I suspected that the name of the street might date back to a colonial epoch and be loaded with racism. It is not as blatant as i thought. After a little bit of research, it seems that the origin of the name of the street remains uncertain: it may date back to the 17th century and may be a reference to a group of black women who ran housing for foreigners there. Still, i believe that the image works in terms of asking questions. What do you think?

just around the corner

Sometimes, though, it may be good not to know what you’re looking for… On a reconnaissance trip for a potential photo walk, the itinerary designed on the map turned out to be fairly monotonous — until a certain corner. And suddenly, the light was a party.

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the days are numbered

I had much enjoyed Lisboa Clichê, both as an exhibition and as a book. In addition to learning about the city where i was a new resident, i felt powerful emotions linked to the passing of time and the contemplation thereof. Photos and texts were combined in a highly effective flow which left a lasting impression. I was thus very impatient to discover the new exhibition of the Portuguese photographer and artist Daniel Blaufuks at the MAAT (the museum of art, architecture and technology).

As i’ve begun to explore in a previous post, the association of images and texts is a topic of great interest to me.

os dias estão numerados (the days are numbered) once again combines words and images. It is a diary in which, each day, the artist pastes one or two photographs (they are polaroid), clippings and words on a numbered A4 page.

The short sentences sometimes refer to current events (the rise of the far right in elections, for instance) or carry a political tone, some are thoughts on photography or art, some are heavy with the emotion of a personal moment, and others are simply poetic. The photographs often show the recurring motif of light falling on a table through a window (variations of the same image are frequent on the artist’s Instagram).

Each in their own specific way (in their own language), the texts and the images complement each other to compose the account of a given day. This works beautifully. The pages of the diary reveal a human being confronted to the passing of time, events of the personal and public spheres, emotions, humour, and a resolute attempt at making sense of it all. I found it deeply inspirational and spent quite a lot of time in the wide room where it was shown — this, i also thought, would be of interest to my readers, so i’m showing phone images of just a few of the 450 pages that are on show at the exhibition.

And inevitably …

A suggestion

• I’ve much enjoyed listening to this conversation between Sacha Wolf and Todd Hido about the latter’s latest book and recent exhibition. While you listen the podcast, do check the images on the webpage of the show or on the website of the gallery.

the drama on the stage within

My little book the drama on the stage within is available on amaz0n.

It is a collection of dialogues between photographs and short free-form texts. Each dialogue conveys musings on the way our lives are governed by the stories we are told and the tales we tell. When words and pictures are brought together, it often happens that one controls the other (a caption dictates the meaning of the image) or that one comes first (an image inspires a poem). It is not the case here: neither are texts an explanation of the image and nor are photographs simple illustrations.

Having each travelled their own path into existence, they meet on the page and respond to each other: the words influence the reading of the photograph, the image in turn affects the meaning of the text. With each pairing, you are invited into a conversation that pokes gentle fun at the weirdness of us human beings.

You can find out more about this project here or in this previous post:

If you get a copy (an excellent way to support my work), please leave a review: it is really helpful.

Thank you for taking part in the Tales of Ink and Light. It’s good to have you on board.

1

Solvitur ambulando means: it gets solved by walking. I’ve read a few good pieces here on Substack that elaborated on that latin saying. At the moment, I can only find the link to this one by :

Xavografica

32. Solvitur ambulando

Read more

2 years ago · 28 likes · 8 comments · Xavi Buendia

Welcome back to another issue of the Tales. I’d like you to know that i enjoy having you here and that i am grateful that you take the time to read my articles.

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Here in Lisbon, the recent reopening of the Museum of Design has been making some noise. When I found myself with a couple of hours on my hands, i headed downtown for a visit.

The building is currently empty. If there is no exhibition, it is because the museum is the exhibition: for a couple of months, they are celebrating the end of the renovation works by putting the building itself on stage.

Now, this huge construction in Baixa (downtown) certainly deserves the attention and i enjoyed discovering the perspectives, the lights and the textures on every floor. As i entered, the fact that i was about to walk through an empty museum made me pause: wouldn’t a museum of emptiness make perfect sense? There would be no collection, nothing to capture the attention, no indigestible text heavy with the pretence of expertise to tell you what to think — just space.

This idea generated a sense of freedom. In a space unencumbered from all things, there would be no army of noisy notification-demons to assault the visitor, no self-proclaimed prophets to control thoughts, no strict teacher to measure achievements. There would be none of these pressing demands that constantly compete for each minute of your time. Just peace.

Feet on the ground: forget that silly notion of emptiness — i love discovering art works, especially photographs. On most days, i still marvel at how technology empowers human beings. A perfect void liberated from all agitation does resemble an afterlife kind of place, and i’m in absolutely no hurry to get there. Let me have all of the daily confusion of life.

This said, as i promenaded in the museum, marvelling at the vast spaces of an open floor and taking in all the details, the sense of peace that had emerged from the vision of a museum of emptiness stayed with me. It was nurtured by the pleasure of exploring the building.

In the 19^th century, the edifice was owned by a bank that provided financial services in relation to the then colonies. From the model presented in a vitrine on the ground floor to the vault with the thick door and the shiny metallic walls lined with safes, everything reminded me of the Spanish show la casa de papel (‘the money heist’, i believe, is how it is titled in English) — i did not wear the Dali mask during my visit.

Since the museum is the exhibition, no effort has been spared in telling the story of the building, from the creative use of concrete by the architect in charge of works in the early 20th century to stories told by employees who worked there in the end of the same century (for instance, a severe segregation was organised between staff and members of the board through the design of separate channels of circulation, and an employee who accidentally crossed paths with a director could be sanctioned with the loss of a couple of days of their wages).

I strived to read the panels and follow the explanations kindly offered by a proactive staff, but my attention was captured by the building. At any time, it seemed that the spaces around me were on the verge of turning into a steampunk universe: when i reached the roof terrace, i almost expected steam-powered vehicles to cross the sky over the hills and honk in the busy streets of downtown geometry.

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A walk that nurtures the imagination and generates feelings of freedom and a deep sense of peace — this turned out to be an excellent artist date (in the sense of Julia Cameron’s Artist’s Way).

The acronym of the museum of design, MUDE, is identical to the Portuguese verb mudar (translating as change or move) conjugated in the imperative (2nd person singular): MUDE means CHANGE.

Remember that…

My little book Remember that you’re going to live is available on amazon.

If you get a copy (an excellent way to support my work), please write a review: it is really super helpful.

Thank you for taking part in the Tales of Ink and Light, it’s good to have you on board.