João Miguel Barros, a lawyer by profession, and in recent years an award-winning photographer, offers his views on a passion that he describes as a “purifying, liberating act”.
1. There are a number of ways to look at the reality that surrounds us, and each of them corresponds to a certain notion of what in that reality can be singled out and valued. In photography, it is the way one sees and depicts what is real that can make the difference, more so, even, than the technical sophistication of the equipment used.
In a world geared towards the importance of “me” and “me with this stuff around me”, everything is designed to record our individual presence in the mundane day-to-day.
Mobile phones have become adept, finely tuned instruments for the purpose of creating those records, democratising access to authorship and generating exposure. On the other hand, the automation of the technical process has permitted democratisation to such a degree that authorship is commonplace. Now all of us are artists, in the sense that we are now all qualified to exhibit work capable of garnering attention.
Social media, in turn, has exploited this to the fullest, making any corner of every neighbourhood the centre of the world, and bringing fame within a click. Everything is now so easy. Really easy! There’s nothing but open doors and windows. All roads are Easy Streets leading to profligate potential.
2. Gone, long gone are the days when a camera was an elite and demanding tool. Back then, the camera was a unique instrument operated by a select few, granting a closer view of the goings on in the outside world to the many. Already fading into historical memory is the seminal work of photography’s great names (to list some at random): Cartier-Bresson, Sebastião Salgado, Robert Capa, Josef Koudelka, Marc Riboud, W.
Eugene Smith, Robert Adams, André Kertész, along with a not insignificant number of others.
3. There several ways of contemplating photographic practice. One that particularly interests me is thinking about photography as a kind of artistic intervention.
An aside here to say that my discussion does not include photojournalism, which is a separate category and should be treated as such.
Journalists, because of their duty of office and an ethical obligation to people and to society, must have respect for the facts and what reality presents them, a responsibility that immediately precludes any sort of adulteration or reimagining of the events they describe.
There are no single truths, all being subject to evaluation and analysis by anyone presented with a given occurrence, and journalists are not automatons governed by some neutrality algorithm. And at any rate, there is no neutrality or impartiality in anything in this life; everything is derived from and conditioned by our individual makeup, by our culture and upbringing, our understanding and our feelings.
Photojournalists, acting as they do in this capacity, are obviously held to that same high standard and are not free to engage in any sort of manipulation of the images they capture. In other words, if the sky is blue, they’re not allowed to make it red. If there’s something out of place next to the principal, central character in a shot, that is how it must remain in the permanent record. And so on.
In journalism, the photography as much as the writing is a faithful projection of what is before one’s eyes. And the (photo)journalist when editing the image obtained, is duty bound not to manipulate or corrupt it.
4. Anyone else using photography for personal expression at any level, professional or amateur, may use the camera with the freedom and creativity of a painter in front of a canvas.
The (photo)artist begins by framing the view and is faced with a first, fundamental choice: the type of lens to attach for a wider angle or one more focused on a particular spot. From that point, a world of possibilities unfolds, particularly once the process of editing the images begins.
For the (photo)artist, any and all manipulation is possible, starting from that first crucial decision between colour and black and white, and then continuing on to the crop, the colour correction and the exposure. In other words, the details. Misrepresentation of reality is definitely an option.
5. On the other hand, the photographic practice has to be an endless exercise in persistence and resilience.
You have to know how to live with failures, with outcomes different from the ones attempted that fell short of their target, with lack of recognition. Photography, even if not adopted as a profession (in the sense of a livelihood), must be loved as a regular activity for the cultivation of taste and sharing of emotions.
Artists live in that limbo between wanting to create semantically significant objects and often not receiving recognition of their efforts and intentions. But again, it’s important to keep going, always keep going, in the understanding that mistakes are a form of learning and that the absence of instant recognition is not a sign of lack of quality. Instead it’s often nothing more than a lack of alignment between a moment and an opportunity.
6. When I look at my practice as a photographer (maybe I should say, at my artistic practice), the things I’ve just mentioned are always at the front of my mind.
I’m not into selfies, and I’m not a fan of sharing intimate or personal images on social networks. There’s a fundamental difference between trying to be known and wanting to be recognised. I feel like those whose sole impulse is wanting to be known are the ones whose work lacks the quality and ideas that would allow them to become recognised.
I’m not a photojournalist, though I do believe I have a crucial path to forge, that of building up my storytelling skills. I’m not a professional photographer, as I don’t earn a living from it; instead I have a job that occupies a great deal of my day. For me, photography is a way of liberating myself from a kind of professional servitude, and a way of affirming my independence from a system not always known for its justice and equality. Placing that buffer of a camera (for others it may be a pen, pencil, what have you) between “me” and my “reality” is a purifying, liberating act.
That’s why I don’t earn anything from this calling I’ve been answering for some years now, not many, but with increasing determination, I try to use photography to record the details of this giant carousel spinning round me in ever-shifting motions and directions bearing reinvented characters through life. It’s a story in continuous renovation, the details of which are never repeated, and the passing of each moment might mean a missed opportunity. A great image wasted.
I’m “there”. I want to be “there”. I see myself in what that “there” might be, might become, as far ahead as possible, in the distance, in the intimacies of people I encounter and the emotions they might reveal. I want to be part of that “there”, but without showing myself and without exchange, helping only to reveal the people, emotions and places I’m able to access.
Photography for me, then, is an exercise in freedom. As free as the act of looking, the eye that sees having no constraint other than the limits of nature and human capability. It’s a journey, usually arduous and difficult, but no less magical, where all kinds of sorcery are possible and all novices are welcome.
João Miguel Barros is a lawyer by profession, and 2017 he began to exhibit his photography and published his first book of Black & White images, Between Gaze and Hallucination. This was followed by two more publications in 2018 and 2019, Photo-Scripts – 14 short stories and Photo-Scripts – 12 short stories. He has also recently started publishing his images in a limited edition magazine Zine.Photo. He has participated in a number of group exhibitions and is also a freelance curator in contemporary photography. João Miguel has won a number of awards, beginning in 2018 with his series Blood, Sweat & Tears which was awarded 1st place at the International Photography Awards, New York, in the “Editorial / Sports Non-Professional” category, and at the Tokyo International Foto Awards in the Non-professional / Editorial category. In 2018, he won 1st Place in “Photojournalism (Amateur)” category of the FAPA – Fine Art Photography Awards, with his project Wisdom Preparatory Academy. And earlier this year, he was the winner of the “Single pictures” category of the Fotofestival Lenzburg 2020, with his photo Self-Portrait of A Not So Young Artist In Times of Crisis.
www.jmb.photo
www.zine.photo
