Raúl Lino - "Casa do Cipreste", Sintra, Portugal (1993)

..

Working on assignment for Editorial Blau, I came to know this absolutely wonderful project from 1912, in the small town of Sintra.

This is actually one of the houses that Raúl Lino (1879 - 1974) built for himself, and is known as the "Casa do Cipreste", a true icon of the portuguese architecture (maybe I should say "in Portugal" instead... In fact, I think that it looks more german than portuguese, what is natural, thinking that Lino studied in Germany).

Being considered by some to be a controversial personality in our 20th century cultural life, Raúl Lino cannot be ignored for sure. His importance and influence still lasts until today.

"Casa do Cipreste" is definitely a magic place full of charm and warmth, a place of outstanding beauty and harmony.

A place that I would undoubtedly love to call home!

The rectangular images were shot using a Sinar F2 camera in 9x12 cm/4x5 inches, equiped with various lenses manufactured by Schneider in Germany.

The square photographs were shot with a Hasselblad camera in 6x6, using Carl Zeiss lenses (Distagon, Planar and Sonnar types), also made in Germany.

Lighting equipment was made by Hensel in Würzburg, Germany.

Light meters by Sekonic and Minolta.

Ektachrome film by Kodak.

I would like to dedicate this post to the architect Luiz Trigueiros from Editorial Blau, a person to whom I owe a lot in personal and professional terms. He was the one who brought me to professional architectural photography, when I returned home from Germany in 1990. After some small misunderstandings that lasted for some time, we are now on good terms, and I was happy to see him and his wife again.

P.S.: Raúl Lino also designed in 1925 Teatro Curvo Semedo in Montemor-o-Novo, wich you might know from some other posts that I have done.

..

"Unglaubliche Geschichte um die Ecke", Pau, France, 1986 (Rolleiflex 3.5 F)

..

Many years ago, the good Lord might remember when (I had to look up...), I was travelling in the company of my good old friend Fred, on our way from Portugal to Germany (or was it the other way?).

After crossing the Pyrenees, we spent a couple of days in Pau, staying at another close friend's home. Pakica (Francisco is his real name) used to live at that time in this nice and friendly town.
Because of our geographical distance, we always had so much to remember about the months we had been apart, living our far away lives, fighting our separate struggles and savouring our separate short happy moments.

"Störung"

"Aufatmung"

"Sonnenlust"

"Erholung"

"Lust zum Wegfahren"

You might have noticed that I titled this minuscule photographic sequence in german language. That's how I called it by then. I will try to shed some light on the subject...

The main tittle means something like "Unbelievable Story Down the Corner"...

Actually, there was something surrealistic about the whole situation: me and Fred just walked randomly in the neighborhood killing time and putting our legs to some work.
I had brought the Rolleiflex with me and I occasionally made an exposure of some scene that I thought might be worthy of some visual interest. It all flew rather calm and relaxed, unstressed...

All of a sudden a car stops by and an older man jumps out, asking very nervously what we were doing. In our rusty french, we tried to explain that we were just doing nothing special, strolling around visiting town.
The good old man was not satisfied with our modest explanations and kept making more and more absurd questions. When he ultimately asked what "race" did we belong, we decided to completely ignore him and kept our way, doing as before.

He then drove rageful and paranoid, mumbling something about police and other stupidities.
Every few minutes he kept driving by, threatening und cursing us.

He even picked up a camera and started photographing us! From far away, from the security of his car...
We couldn't keep from laughing and finally felt some kind of pity on him.

Poor mad man... He had so much demons to live with...

I would like to emphasise that all this happened long before the ghost of terrorism, before September 11th and all this kind of sordid occurences.
I am talking about a peaceful sunny afternoon in an european town free of conflict, with two pacific young people enjoying the tranquil quiteness of some sleepy streets.

What brings me to the point of saying that "the moral of the story, the moral of this song, is simply that one should never be where one does not belong.
So when you see your neighbor carrying something, help him with his load, and don't go mistaking Paradise for that home across the road".

And yes, I was paraphrasing Bob Dylan in his song "The Ballad of Frankie Lee and Judas Priest", from the album "John Wesley Harding", from 1968.

For the photo freaks: all images were shot on the 14th of August 1986, using a Rolleiflex 3.5 F, loaded with Kodak Tri-x film, developed in Kodak D-76, diluted 1+1.
The images shown here were scanned from original silverprints (printed by me), using an Epson 4990 Photo.

Rolleiflex 3.5 F - Monsaraz, Alentejo, 7th of July 2009

..

I have been travelling to Monsaraz, and photographing there, for many years now.
It is a small village in the south of Portugal, with a castle on top of the hill, overlooking the surrounding valley.
A couple of years ago, the construction of Barragem do Alqueva made a dramatic change in the landscape. Where once was dry land, the waters now reflect the deepness of the blue sky.

Without wishing to dig further into ecological arguing and considerations, I must be tempted to ask myself: "for what so much blue?".

I can foresee the tourist resorts and the golf courses popping up here and there, and I can even envision the big cash flowing in some big scale agricultural projects; but not in the pockets of the few old people remaining in the region, the ones who have been there for ages. They will keep living in poverty, as they always did, forever forgotten and misused.

I hope that I will be proved wrong...

Some twenty or so years ago, you still could watch authentic life in Monsaraz. At the end of the day, the farmers would bring their mules and donkeys to drink by the fountain, the women would sit by the door knitting and chatting.
You still could hear children playing and laughing.

Twenty years ago, you could still feel the pulse of Monsaraz.

Now Monsaraz is an open museum, meaning that besides a couple of souvenir shops and some restaurants, there is very little life to be found there on a day-to-day basis. In the evening, the shop owners go live their lives somewhere else.

I have the consolation of so much beauty...

All photographs shot with a Rolleiflex 3.5F, with Carl Zeiss Planar f/3.5 75mm.
Kodak TX, developed in Agfa Rodinal, dil. 1+50.

And that is how we started the "session", refreshing ourselves with a cool glass of beer, gazing at the marvelous sight of the valley below...

If you got some curiosity about Monsaraz, you can take a look at some more (color) photographs by Helena, posted on her Digitalis Kitsch Blog, under "Kitsch Promenades".
You find the link on the right.

Hope that you enjoy, and have a good weekend.

..