I've Explored Different Problems Of The Whole Earth And Put Them On A Plate, Literally (12 Pics)

My journey as a photographer started in 2010, during my honeymoon in Cuba. It was a fantastic trip and I wanted to bring back numerous memories by capturing my experiences with a camera. At the time, I bought a small Sony digital camera. However, I ended up being photographed in front of the Havana capitol with a machine in a manual process. That's what drove me to buy analog cameras in the months that followed, a process I practiced until 2015, the year I bought my first DSLR.

Since then, I have been practicing photography of different types, from nature, architecture, landscape, macro and conceptual. It is in this last theme that I have applied myself more recently.

My taste for photography has been growing. I have won several competitions in recent years. In 2017, I won a still life at the Xposure competition. In 2018, I won the Sony Awards with the Portugal National Award and in 2020, I achieved the same feat. I have more awards in my portfolio, at PX3, IPA, TIFA, WPE, ND Awards, FAPA, Oneeyeland, etc. Apart from this art, I less often practice painting in acrylic and oil. My main favorite artists are M.C. Hescher and Victor Vassarely.

The idea to create this photography series arose from the environmental, social, economic, energy, electrification of consumption, etc., problems that we are experiencing today and came up at a birthday party when checking the waste of plastic plates and cutlery. I tried to address different themes. I almost always used the same two plates and two sets of cutlery that I painted in a colorful, creative way and always tried to demonstrate some of my ideas. I tried to use some of the symbology of colors, calling attention, colors that intensify the message and at the same time, use the elements arranged in a geometric way, something more appealing to those who visualize the images.

I think I was happy with this series because the message was well conveyed. Whether it mentions war, energy with a lightbulb and batteries, or refers to a plate full of spaghetti-like rubbers, the idea is there and most people feel and assimilate the messages.

On the other hand, presenting the message on a plate is a way of reaching anyone, we all eat, good or bad, but that's where we eat and it seems that the world easily "feeds" on any problem without looking at the means to solve it. The series is at the same time a satire on the excessive consumption of goods and the planet's natural resources.

Photography is one of the most versatile art forms for reaching out to people. I think that being able to express ideas, and feelings, present what I see and the way I see the surroundings, is something that, in a way, represents freedom, but also an affirmation and expression of personal opinions.

I have a few ongoing projects at the moment. One of them is associated with architecture. When processing architectural images of some buildings in Portugal, I discovered that if I added colors when applying layers of image processing, I could create something interesting, three-dimensional and with a three-dimensional and appealing graphic aspect, which I called the “World of layers”.

Another series I've been working on uses graphic and color elements and reverts to some current issues. This time I used a styrofoam bust superimposed on colored cards. Ideas from the thoughtless use of nuclear that takes us to war, offensive, but also the danger of its handling to produce energy and waste, the complex sensations that society experiences, as if its head exploded with problems (balloons), the danger of the expansion of artificial intelligence, and also the use of social networks, an image which I named the “emoji effect”. We live in a simple way where young people's communication is easily based on likes, emojis, etc.