Tag: rural workers

The pleasure of revisiting: The harvesters (men and women) and me.

landscape photography, Photography, portraits, rural workers

I’m starting to revisit my collection of photographs of rural workers handling different types of crops across the country. And I do so, inspired and deeply moved after watching a few times the documentary that competed for the prize at the 2000 Cannes Festival (and of great international recognition in the following years) by the great filmmaker Agnès Varda called ‘Les glaneurs et la glaneuse’ (* )(The collectors and I). Varda considers herself, in this documentary, a ‘glaneuse’, not of harvest remains, but a ‘glaneuse’ of information, images, and stories. (*)(https://mubi.com/pt/films/the-gleaners-i).

Varda very appropriately quotes, comments and shows two large paintings on the theme of Jean-François Millet (1814-1875) “Les glaneus” (The scavengers) (1857) and “Le rappel des glaneus” (The remembrance of the scavengers) (1859) by Jules Breton (1827-1906). The criticism of these great works of art comments, among other aspects, on things that are very typical and known to rural workers who, in these activities, show themselves with their ‘broken backs, eyes fixed on the ground’ in ‘repetitive and exhausting movements imposed by this hard work: get down, pick up, get up’.

Jean-François Millet (1814-1875) “Les glaneus” (1857).
“Le rappel des glaneus” (1859) by Jules Breton (1827-1906).

‘The harvesters’ (of normal harvests), in a lot, resemble the ‘pickers’ who were poor workers, but worthy like any other rural workers who were authorized by the owners or tenants of different plantations to ‘pick up’ the leftovers after the realization of the main crops to guarantee their sustenance.

The context of my photos of rural workers harvesting in the interior of Brazil is quite different from the collectors of the classic paintings shown in the documentary by Agnès Varda, but even so I decided to make comparisons since I find similarities between these images because these rural workers repeat, daily, during the harvest period, the same scenes of having their ‘backs broken, eyes fixed on the ground’ in ‘repetitive and exhausting movements imposed by this hard work: lowering , pick up, lift’ being ‘supervised’, or controlled, also, as in Millet’s work, by one or more ‘inspectors’ of the bosses.

I can say that I am also part of this story because in my childhood – along with my brothers/sisters and cousins ​​– I was a collector. My paternal grandfather and my father allowed (and encouraged) us to ‘pick up’ coffee after the normal period of the annual harvest in their small plantations. The product of this activity was sold, which yielded some money that was shared between us. It is even said that one of the cousins ​​’hidden’, surreptitiously, under the ‘skirt’ of some coffee trees, during normal harvests (in which we also actively participated), some good amounts of coffee which, later at the time of ‘ scavenger hunt’ was gallantly collected by all of us. Everything leads to the belief that both the grandfather and the father pretended that they did not know about this illicit maneuver.

photobook {.R.U.R.A.I.S.} (rural workers from Brasil)

portraits, rural workers

{R.U.R.A.I.S.}

To purchase my book, contact me directly on facebook by message, or on my website https://www.antoniomozetophotography.com, or on my instagram @magic_rectangle or on Editora Origin’s website https://www.editoraorigem. com.br/

Exhibition and sales of photographs of “RURAIS”: Casa Odisseia, Al. Min. Rocha Azevedo, 463 São Paulo from 11:00 am to 5:00 pm until 11/17/21.

[.P.O.R.T.R.A.I.T.S.]

portraits

{…portraits…always portraits…}

Brassaï (1899-1984) questions in his book ‘Proust and photography’ (original title: ‘Marcel Proust sous l’emprise de la photographie’ and published in Brazil in Portuguese in 2005 by Jorge Zahar Ed., Rio de Janeiro) (version that I now read) that “a simple photograph would possess so as much presence as a real person? Yes, Proust thinks, the photo is even a kind of real double, loaded with all the potentialities of a being”.

And Brassaï goes on to say: “every portrait would not attest to the presence of a person in front of a lens, would it not be an image traced by light itself, as its etymology indicates, by the way: photos=light, graphein=trace? WOULDN’T IT BE THE VERY EMANATION OF THE BEING?”

Continue reading “[.P.O.R.T.R.A.I.T.S.]” →

Me and Mr. Strand.

portraits


In the book “Understanding a photograph” by John Berger (organization and introduction by Geoff Dyer and translation by Paulo Geiger) (Cia das Letras. São Paulo. 2017) (an authentic treatise on photography made known by master Juan Esteves, São Paulo) I read and reread it a few times (good things have to be tasted homeopathically) the ‘reading’ of the photo on the left of 1944 (made three years before this writter was born) by Paul Strand in Vermont, New England-USA, and the that you can read there with all the letters impresses me, touches me a lot.

Berger says of Strand’s work: “His best photographs are unusually dense – not in the sense of being overloaded or obscure, but in the sense that they are filled with an unusual amount of substance per square centimeter. And all this substance becomes the essence of the object’s life. Take the famous portrait of Mr. Bennet. His jacket, his shirt, his beard on his chin, the wood of the house behind him, the air around him become, in this image, the very face of his life, of which his facial expression is the concentrated spirit”.

Left: Mr. Bennett (Vermont, New England-USA) (1944) by Paul Strand.

Right: Onion harvester (Casa Branca, SP-Brasil) (2019) Antonio Mozeto.

The photo on the right that I took in 2019 of an onion harvester in Casa Branca (SP-Brazil) has a much more explicit surface given that the worker is in his own working environment. And, without due permission, but with due boldness, ‘reading’ my photo, I make Berger’s words about the current Paul Strand photo mine: all the substance of the photo is in the expressive look of the worker, in a marked face due to the hardships of hard work and the properties of his surroundings: the harsh and striking light of the day in full sun, the onion harvesting bucket, the onion sacks lined up behind him, two companions of toil and the bus that brings him a lot early for the harvest and takes you home at the end of another day of this person’s hard daily workday.

As Berger rightly said (operate citato) “in the relationship between photography and words, the first yearns for an interpretation, and words usually supply it. The photograph, irrefutable as evidence, but weak in meaning, gains meaning from words”.

{like a tattoo}

landscape photography, Photography

{like a tattoo} – [I was born: I grew up: I raised children and grandchildren: I lived and live in a place where time is another time; another dimension; a time that is more peaceful, like the dairy cows that lie down motionless and sleepy in the pasture at night: they stay there, quietly and slowly ruminating all night; on nights of pitch-dark darkness it is only known that they are there through the feeling of their warmth, their smell; through the little noise their teeths make when they chew; nor do their usual mooing be heard; my feelings do not fit the description in words; I am not good with words; I like them but I don’t even know if they exist to describe it in a way that the other feels them as they really are; I am only good with the feeling of feelings; those who have already felt them, those who have already lived them have stuck them deep in their skin: like a stain: like a sticky sap of a jackfruit tree: like a tattoo: they leave with us when we go to another world]

“Embraced by the light” or “Why I love black and white photography”

Photography

This post was set up in celebration of my first anniversary of my first post on my WordPress site. Done exactly on December 1, 2018. In it I will try to express a very peculiar feeling that occurs when shooting and I hope you feel like me: feel embraced by the light. Blessed by the light. Purified by the light. Continue reading ““Embraced by the light” or “Why I love black and white photography”” →

Multiple Subject Photography: A Brain Storming Exercise

Photography

Multi-subject photography may be the most complex language of photography in existence. The literature shows us that there are great masters in this photographic technique (see at the end a citation of great blog on the theme). Continue reading “Multiple Subject Photography: A Brain Storming Exercise” →

The faces of men and women of the field

Photography

This is a subproject derived from my ongoing project called “RURALS”.

I want with this subproject to show the faces of rural workers, men and women, that I have been photographing for about 4 years. In some ways this subproject is like a record for the posterity of what rural workers were like in my adult years.

Unfortunately this is a record of the present times that does not include my time as a child and adolescence. But I will continue on this road in this project until the day my fingers can no longer press the shutter button on my cameras.

Rural Workers: New Protagonists. New stories. But “all things must past”.

Photography

It is truly unbelievable and remarkable what photography promotes in our heads, minds, especially mine, of a photographer. There are many “mind trips” that I go through in each photo shoot and then during the later stage of image selection and post processing. (texto em Português ao final) Continue reading “Rural Workers: New Protagonists. New stories. But “all things must past”.” →

‘Time and Patience’ (José Saramago)

Photography, portraits, Street photography

“If anyone asks me what time is, I immediately declare my ignorance: I do not know. I hear the beating of the pendulum clock right now, and the answer seems to be there. And if the mirror shows me that I am not who I was a year ago, it will not tell me what the time is. Just what time does.” (José Saramago) Continue reading “‘Time and Patience’ (José Saramago)” →