WORKING ON…

1. Film scanning
   I’ve been meaning to scan my black and white film from 2024. That’s the tl;dr version of this section. This newsletter is mostly about my photography and I’ll try to keep it that way, but this month was quite something for me.
   
   As you know, I spent the whole September in Portugal, and let’s just say that my return didn’t go as smoothly as I had thought it would. It took me a whole week just to find a sleep rhythm again, and another to get my life routine back on track.
   
   Right after landing, I somehow managed to go to four concerts in seven days (thanks, past Nuno, for stacking up those tickets). You see, autumn and winter are concert seasons in this part of the world, and what can I say, I really like music. Then ADE came around and I found myself at three events in a row.
   
   Then the clocks changed, my birthday happened, Halloween flew by, and suddenly it’s November and we’re basically at Christmas already :’)

   
   

   Without a four-day work week, there just isn’t as much room for photography as I’d like. That’s the reality of it. October was a blink, a very good one, but a blink nonetheless!

2. Spotlight:
   One of the things that kept me busy in September, and one of the main reasons I went to Portugal, was the 20-year celebration of meeting my university friends. It’s a very tight-knit core group that, despite following different life paths, still keeps in touch and gathers whenever we can.
   
   This reunion was special: not just the core group, but many of the friends who’ve been part of our circle over the years came by.

   
   

   It turned out to be the perfect opportunity to take Spotlight out of the comfort and control of my home. I basically set up a portable studio and worked in an assembly-line fashion, industrialising the process so I could photograph as many friends as possible for the project. My good friend Fábio was also there documenting the whole weekend, which means I now have behind-the-scenes moments of me at work.

   
   

   It was a different kind of experience, and not without its challenges. The first one was something I hadn’t anticipated: just how different everyone’s body shapes would be, and how much that affected framing. Normally, I photograph one person for an extended session. We do a few test shots, some small talk to break the ice, and then the setup stays more or less fixed and we get working. But this time, I had to readjust constantly between people to keep the composition consistent.

   
   

   
   

   The other big challenge was time. Ideally, I’d have spent longer with each person, but the chance to have everyone together in one place was too good to pass up. So I worked quickly, trying to ease people’s discomfort in front of the camera and push just enough to capture one or two portraits we could both feel good about.
   
   Each person was a different experience, some easier than others and the last one required a bit of chasing even. With a mix of honesty and irony, Ângela told me why she’d been avoiding the camera at all costs. She’s a photographer herself - a professional one - unlike me (just a serious hobbyist) but she completely and unexplainably freezes in front of a lens. She chose the right profession to stay behind one all the time. 😅

   
   As you’ll understand from point 1 you won’t be seeing any of the photos from this shoot yet, but I can at least show you some behind the scenes.

BOOK CORNER

Jeff Mermelstein - SideWalk

The other day I was going through my photobook collection after a conversation about collectors’ items. I started pulling out a few highly valued items, according to the current market. But here’s the thing: I’m not a collector for rarity’s sake. I buy books to use them, to open them, to spend time with them. Whether it’s a first edition or a reprint from last week, I couldn’t care less.

Still, as it happens with some titles, they never get reprinted. Their prices skyrocket, and suddenly they’re treated like artifacts instead of books. Sidewalk is one of those titles that slipped into that category. I paid a fair amount for my copy, I’ll admit, but I considered it worth it — and thanks Rubén, your alerts have been responsible for more than a few of the treasures on my shelf.

It’s not the first, nor will it be the last time I mention Everybody Street here. That documentary genuinely changed the way I look at photography. One of its featured photographers is Jeff Mermelstein, and discovering his work there eventually led me to this book.

I’ve never formally studied photobook design, but making my own zines taught me to follow a few personal rules — a mix of instinct, design sense, and lessons learned from looking at dozens of books. But when opening Sidewalk, Mermelstein immediately throws those expectations out the window, and that’s part of what excites me about this book.

Two things jumped out right away. The first is that the cover image appears again inside the book. Normally, I’d question that choice — why repeat a photo? — but here it works. Seeing the image as a full spread adds context and makes it feel complete.

The second surprise comes in the opening pages. After a short dedication — “for my parents” — and a simple title page, the book kicks off abruptly: a woman walking with a knife pointed forward. No introduction, no explanation, just straight into it. And the wall, is it reacting to the knife? Or is there someone outside of the frame, leaving us to wonder? Honestly it is such a good start and a shocker!

But it’s not just those aspects that caught my eye, it’s that the following spread is the book’s title page, making that image, its preface. And you know what? Then it clicked for me. If a photobook speaks only in pictures, then a photograph should be its preface.

Jeff moved to New York City in 1978. In his own words:

I brought with me a naiveté, an unknowingness, a freshness of having grown up on a typical suburban block. I bring with me a different kind of a sponge.

I often say that photographing in the U.S. is a kind of cheat code for street photography, and Sidewalk proves my point. Jeff gets lost in the whirlwind of New York, and somehow makes sense of it through instinct. His images capture what art historian Max Kozloff refers to as “a volatile proximity of humans to each other.”

From crowded sidewalks to quiet corners, from discarded objects on the ground to the layered reflections in storefront windows — Jeff is always watching, always ready.

On a technical level, the book is superb. The printing is crisp and glossy, giving the images the punch they deserve. It almost feels like it could have a photographic quality to it, but then you bend it again and realize it’s just normal paper.

The binding allows each spread to lie flat, a small but essential detail, since all photos spread across both pages. It was certainly an age where horizontal was the prominent form factor.

Mermelstein’s photographs reflect a different time when you could get up-close and personal with strangers without much backlash.

He created a beautiful and diverse body of work about the New Yorkers he caught in all their chaos, grace, and absurdity. There’s no shortage of street photography books coming out of the Big Apple, but this is certainly a special one.

INSPIRATION

The three day weekend

In keeping with the theme of point 1, about time scarcity, I’ll leave you with a podcast episode that hit me right where my head is at on this topic. I hope you enjoy the conversation, and if you are in a position where you can, consider creating a four day work week!

The book of month pedestal

From now on, the book of the month gets its own pedestal! A lovely thrift-shop find that lets me keep the current read close at hand.

By moving it off the shelf, it’s now within easy reach in my living room, where it doubles as a display piece and, who knows, maybe even a conversation starter for any curious guest who drops by.

That’s it for this month.

If would like to support me and my work by purchasing a print from my Etsy store.