How do you define beauty in your work, and what elements do you consider essential to achieving it?
If beauty is in the eye of the beholder, then the work I create intuitively suggests that beauty lives in what is real, genuine, non-performative, spontaneous, courageous, and deeply individual. This is why I like working with intersectional people, because I understand very well that growing up in the margins of society requires a strong sense of identity and courage to break free from the expectations imposed on you - including narrow ideas of what beauty is supposed to look like. The bodies, identities, and experiences outside those cookie-cutter standards of beauty are where my curiosity lies. I want to create images that tell viewers, "This is beautiful too. You just haven't been given the visual references to recognize it, and that absence was never accidental." That is why it is so important for intersectional artists to create work centered on intersectional communities. When the responsibility of defining beauty is left primarily to a white, European, cisgender, privileged perspective, photography too often reproduces the same limited, exploitative, and sexist gaze. Expanding who gets to make images also expands our understanding of what and who we recognize as beautiful.
What rituals or routines do you follow when starting a new project? Is there something that always sparks your creativity?
Oof, I'm not a very consistent person, so routines and rituals aren't really part of my world. Professionally speaking, though, I've created two steps that help me prepare for a new project. First, I send my clients a borderline existentialist questionnaire called What Lies Beyond. It gives them time to self-reflect and be vulnerable. Vulnerability goes both ways, and it undeniably invites honesty into the final work. Once I get their answers back, I draft a mood board, and we collaborate from there. There's a lot of involvement from my end, both creatively and emotionally. By the time the shoot day comes around, we already have a good sense of what we want to do, so I can focus on playing, experimenting, being silly, and enjoying the process. I don't think anything sparks my creativity more than learning, I'm obsessed with it! Workshops, continuing education courses, YouTube, BOOKS (I can't stress enough how impactful and transformative books are for me. A photography book by an artist I admire feeds my soul.) The Artist's Way taught me how powerful putting pen to paper can be, so journaling and reflecting on my upbringing and on how culturally rich Brasil is always gets me thinking creatively.
Is there a specific piece you've created that feels like a perfect reflection of your aesthetic vision? What makes it so special to you?
No, haha. I thought about it long and hard, and I can't point to a single image and say "This is me" because, first, I'm a singular made of plurals, and second, I'm constantly changing the way I photograph. An image can reflect who I was at the moment I created it, but it can't define my entire aesthetic vision.At least, that's what I think now. Ask me again in five years, and my answer might be completely different.
When editing photos (or being in any other creative process), do you have a go-to soundtrack or playlist that sets the mood? How does music influence your creative flow?
When I'm in the studio, I ask my subjects to play whatever they like because it's about them feeling comfortable, and I get to discover stuff I've never heard before! When editing, it's my mood that sets the soundtrack. I have one too many playlists, but lately I've been more into listening to full albums. Right now, it's a rotation of Liniker - Caju, Caetano Veloso - Transa, Lauryn Hill -The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill, and total silence. Some images demand my full attention, and I'm one of those people who needs silence to concentrate.
What do you think makes a photograph timeless? Is there a common thread that you believe connects iconic images?
Intimacy, emotion, colours, and historical relevance are characteristics that makes an image timeless to me, and I think Gordon Parks, Dawoud Bey, Henry Gruyart, Horst P. Horst, Elizaveta Porodina, Nan Goldin (I can go on forever) are great examples of carrying these characteristics in their body of work.
