As we know, the word photography has always meant: "writing with light" ( photos = light; graphos = writing) . Yet for some strange reason I have never ever had the sensation that I was actually writing with light, up to now, that is, with digital technology.

For the first time in the history of photography, we have reached a stage when the term "writing with light" has gone beyond being just a metaphor. Today I am using a tool (stylus) in the form of a pen, pencil or brush, to actually move around the pixels captured by the light sensitive sensor in the camera, with a wealth of tools and options unseen before.

Moving around the pixels of the image, leaving traces of what we describe, for lack of better terms, as having the look of gravure, painting, drawing or other artistic manifestations, yet at the same time retaining the nature and quality of hyperrealism as derived from a process that could be achieved mainly by means of a digital camera. Of course there is a precursor, in the analog era, in the form of Polaroids that we would manipulate by embossing through the emulsion with a strong pointed tool of any sort. The scope of alterations were of course very limited and thus very repetitive.

This work wants to question at the same time the media itself, as much as it wants to explore the medium and what it can deliver as far as aesthetic explorations. Towards that goal, it has taken upon itself to investigate the notion of portrait making, by taking it in a new direction as well.

The camera used was a 35mm digital camera with a new wide-angle lens that was made to coincide with size of the image sensor, and thus avoid the usual reduction of field that previous lenses were imposing on 35 mm digital cameras. Therefore a 17 mm lens such as the one I used is a true 17 mm lens. That lens in conjunction with a new electronic flash that synchronizes to make fill in flash photography more than just a good intention were basic to the style of image making deployed.

The flash unit used allows for ambient light and fills in a flash of light that is just perfect in the pursuit of a balanced relation between the subject matter and the surrounding reality. Also this flash unit needed to work well at very close distances without making its presence very noticeable.

The images were all taken without looking through the viewfinder of the camera, as at a distance of no more than ten inches from the face of the subject a visual contact with the subject is paramount to avoid what could be perceived as “in your face photography”.

This proximity was defined from the very beginning, as it would allow several things, on the one hand a very intense scrutiny of the person one is looking at in the final print, with a view that is beyond our normal ability to see. We cannot observe the person we are looking at with the detail the camera can capture. In addition to the fact that the digital camera, allows us to make huge prints, such as the ones in this exhibition ( 1.20 meters wide) making the size of the subject much larger than reality. The fact that digital images can be blown up to very large sizes without any significant presence of pixels, as compared to a similar image made on film, was part of the visual strategy employed. Because the camera is digital and 35 mm, one has great mobility in taking the image in the context of, for instance such a procession, while retaining the ability to have incredibly fine detail in any enlargement.

Thus the impression that the viewer will encounter is a diversity of issues with photographic representation aside of the content of the images themselves.

The portraits were taken in the city of Trenedad in Brazil, during the procession of Romeiria do Divino Pai Eterno. A religious festivity celebrated in that city every year. The pictures are of those looking at the procession from the sidelines. One has through such images the possibility to come into a closer experiential dimension with the individuals who were at that procession rather than looking at them as a mass of people.

The challenge in this instance is to see what such images, in crossing cultures between Brazil, Mexico and Bangladesh, are actually capable of delivering. How do the normal cultural barriers manifest themselves in the context of such an exhibition, which is in addition crisscrossed with further dialogues around digital technologies? What are the changes thus brought about on photography?

“Writing with light” intends to present the viewer with a diversity of new dialogues, rather than particular answers, it raises many questions, which the observer might wish to respond to.