Today I will be starting, here on Bit Rebels, a regular series (like the Rebel Music one) but this time focused on another passion of mine: Photography. I’m a total noob in what comes to photography but, and thanks to Twitter, I’ve been finding some photographers that have caught my eye and that I’ve began to  follow with interest.

Photography, in my opinion, has much to do with music. Everyone can hold a camera, in the same way that we all know how to sing “Do Re Mi Fa Sol La Si Do” but the truth is not everyone can be Wagner, Chopin or Björk. The same applies to photography: We all can take pictures but there is a huge difference between the photos we take and those taken by pro-amateurs and professionals.

In the same way we listen to music without thinking who is behind it – a song becomes an individual object that lives per se – the same happens with a photo: We appreciate it, study it without thinking about who is behind it, in what circumstances the photo was taken, what moments preceded the immortality of a moment. With “Behind the Photo” I pretend to introduce to our readers who is behind a picture and try and put a photo into context.

Untitled by Paulo Henriques

The photo above is from Paulo Henriques, a young Portuguese photographer that I found on Twitter (and had the pleasure to meet in offline life recently). Paulo is a photojournalist with a track record that is none but impressive:  He was a photographer and the photography editor for the music festival “Rock in Rio”, his work as been published in the book “Olhares de Pedra” (Sights of Stone) based on a photography work about statues in Portugal and has been collaborating as a freelancer with many Portuguese and international newspapers. He studied in Lisbon, Portugal and New York,U.S.A.

Interview

1. What is the story behind this picture?
PH: The story behind it is very simple: It was taken during a hearing at the Portuguese Parliament. These hearings taken a long time, where the guests are questioned by many members of the parliament and then have to answer to all those questions. Because of this the photographers have to stay there for many hours, waiting for the next guest. This particular photo was literally there, I just had to shoot with my camera: those are the legs and shoes of a fellow journalist that was also following the hearing. It was a detail that I liked and I am a photographer that likes the little details.

2. What equipment did you use to take this photo?
PH: I used a Canon EOS 1D Mark II that had a Canon 70-200mm IS II USM lenses on it, at the time.

3. Do you use photo retouching software? If yes, why?
PH: To make some editing I use Adobe Lightroom 2 and Adobe Photoshop CS4. I use Lightroom to manage my daily workflow as well as to make some basic adjustments like exposure, contrast, levels and density of some photos. For some jobs I have to make, where I’m asked something more specific, I usually go with Adobe Photoshop CS4.

4. What project do you consider more important, until now, in your career?

PH: This is really a difficult question since it is really complicated to choose only one project that I can consider more important, that has left a mark (in a positive or negative way). If I really have to choose, and because it is something that I worked on very recently, and in very difficult conditions, the work I did in Madeira, about the floods that affected the islands, will remain in my mind for a long time.

You can see more work by Paulo Henriques on his website as well follow him on Twitter.

I hope you like this new series and any comments, questions are more than welcome. That is why “Bit Rebels” spends a gazillion Space Credits every week: to have that comment box ready for you

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