You Liked What You Saw

There is a kind of visual education that comes from repetition. The more you photograph, the more clearly you recognize your own preferences, anticipate your choices, and understand how deeply certain ideas of beauty are learned. This series began when I started to question those ideas.

At São Joaquim Market, during the Festa do Marujo Olho Vivo, something caught my attention and interrupted my search. I was not looking for portraits to build a series. I simply encountered a situation that unsettled what I had expected to find.

The market has its own photographic history, which gives this experience a particular genealogy. Pierre Verger photographed the former Água de Meninos Market; Sérgio Guerra brought São Joaquim into dialogue with Luanda. The photographs are separated from mine by time and intention. What interests me here is the discovery of a kind of beauty I had not set out to find.

Súbitamente grows out of this openness to recognition. Photography can change the very standards a photographer uses to decide what is worth photographing.

“You Liked What You Saw” preserves that discovery with a touch of humor. The phrase belongs to the situation, but it could just as easily describe my own reaction to it. In that instant, I found a reason to like a photograph before I knew exactly what had drawn me to it.