Some photos from Brazil I like

Riocinha favela, Rio de Janeiro. November, 2008.


Sometimes I am boggled by what is considered "good" photography. I often don't understand a lot of the commentary on what I consider bad photography, where it seems to me what a critic or the photographer says is given equal value to the photographs themselves.
I used to consider most portraits dull and uninspired, and could never understand why great portrait photographers were considered great. But maybe this is changing; over the course of this year, I've begun to take more portraits, because I find so much can be said in the way people compose themselves, either deliberately or candidly. And although I haven't become completely comfortable with taking portraits, I've realized that my main interests in photography lies in photographing people (this was partially realized when, after telling a Chinese construction worker in Ethiopia I was a photographer, he asked me "do you photograph scenes or people?" "People," I answered.).

I guess what I am interested in is how people interact with their environments. I tend not to take "isolated" portraits of people in front of a monochrome background, but to somehow convey a relationship between people and the spaces around them. My favorite photos -- my own and those of others -- are almost always of people and their environment. That all sounds pretty general and squishy, which is probably why I have avoided talking about photography on this blog in the first place.

Here are some of my photos I took in Middletown, Connecticut, during my junior (third) year at Wesleyan University in the autumn of 2006. Incidentally, this was the last time I shot entirely on film. I actually miss using film, something I hope to change once I get back to the States. The smell of toxic chemicals in the darkroom, the magical appearance of images on the paper, and satisfying click and subsequent winding my camera after each exposure -- these are things I miss.

Sometimes I feel my job is pretty hard (well, not the actual fellowship job), because I don't get to photograph things that are obviously beautiful. People sometimes ask why am I photographing this and that, like dorms in a construction site, which might seem mundane. But photographing something like a construction site to me is far more interesting than something like Iguazu falls, where one can find enough pretty pictures on Google images.

Sao Paulo, November, 2008
Sao Paulo
Sao Paulo
Curitiba, Brazil. October 2008