2009/4/13 George Pinto <[email protected]>: > I found the portraits by Alex Fernandes extraordinary. It was like > I stood in front of each subject and they were interacting directly > (non-verbally) with only me, as if we were the only two in the room > without the photographer. I felt I understood a part of them > through the portraits which seem to come to life, transcending > the medium it was recorded on. By comparison I am thoroughly > bored by painted portraits in museums. I am not a photographer > but the angle, light, lens, depth, filter, seemed outstanding.
A Lampiao saying that this work is "very, very ordinary" might actually make someone else look a close second time at Alex's work. Who says controversy isn't goo :-) My only difference with Alex is an ideological one -- about how someone in the creative arts could best promote and popularise his or her creativity. Needless to say, my approach is largely pro-copyleft, some-rights-reserved rather than the all-rights-reserved approach of copyright. As for Alex, here's a piece I wrote about him and his work some time ago. His URL again is http://www.portrait-atelier.net/ : * * * THE ARTIST... AS A PORTRAIT PHOTOGRAPHER By Frederick Noronha His first memories of photography go back to times when he was a ten-year-old boy, messing in a darkroom at St Xavier's. Alex Anthony Ashok Fernandes' dad was then a prof at this prominent Jesuit-run college in Bombay. Young Alex spent his holidays there, developing film-rolls and making prints. Then, at the end of his teens, he remembers being obsessed with the idea of taking to a profession. Photography was that hobby. After his twelfth standard, he didn't pursue formal education anymore. >From there, till coming up with a neat exhibition of Konkani theatre artists from Goa in December 2007, has been a long journey. "I did the tiatrist bit, because I thought that is my representation of a Goan portrait," as he puts it. Says Alex: "It struck me that in Goa everybody identifies with (the Konkani theatre artistes). I thought it would be a nice idea to get all these together and do a series on them." Advertising pro Cecil Pinto and journalist Alister Miranda have played a crucial role in making this happen. "Within one month, I shot the 36 of them. In Mumbai, my was coordinated by (Konkani writer and helpful networker) Isidore Dantas. I rented a studio for the purpose, and shot seven or eight of them in one day." "Significantly, the tiatr also started in Bombay, as a way for expat Goans there to keep in touch with their homeland (then still a Portuguese colony and a sea-journey away). Growing up in the Dhobitalao (locality of Bombay) was like being right in the heart of the tiatr. In two places, Rangbhavan and Bhangwaddi, tiatrs were regularly held. Tiatrists could often be seen at the Sonapur Church, or the C.D'Souza Bakery after mass," he opines. "I'm not a big tiatr fan myself," Alex confesses. "But I saw in my work sharp similarities with those of the characters in (cartoonist) Mario Miranda's book on Goa. I couldn't put my finger on it. It was sociologist-anthropologist Rahul Srivastava who noted that I was looking at archetypes. He told me that what Mario did in cartoons, I had done -- maybe unconsciously or partly unconsciously -- to the tiatrist." But to understand his work, and what goes into the making of his impressive portraits, one needs to understand the artiste and his evolution. A GOAN MIGRANT Mumbai-born (the city was still called Bombay, of course) Alex grew up in the South Mumbai neighbourhood of Dhobitalao. The locality's name can be translated, literally, as the "washerman's pond". History says that, in past centuries, this used to be a location where linen was washed. Apparently, during the British rule, 'dhobis' would wash the British soldiers' clothes there. Later, the lake was filled up, and a public library is believed to stand over what was the lake. Dhobitalao and its environs was also once a village of the local Kolis, converted to Christianity by the Portuguese in the 16th century. Cavel particularly became a Christian enclave, and later immigrants of this religion -- from Goa, Daman, Bassein and Salsette -- settled here. Alex's family was one of them. After schooling at St Xavier's and going on to Elphinston College in Colaba, to study Physics, Alex opted for a more applied world -- one viewed through the lens of the camera. Says he: "After my twelfth standard, I didn't purse (formal education) anymore. Instead, I got into photography. Advertising photography in the 1980s was just starting to bloom with people like (industrial photographer) Mitter Bedi, (commercial and fine art photographer) Dayaram Chawda, and (seminal photographer) Adrian Stevens. These were the people who were the top advertising photographers in Bombay at the time. It seemed like a nice idea to take on photography as a profession." Alex Fernandes (now 44) points out that there was no formal way of learning photography then. Says he: "There was no recognized institutes (unlike now). The only way you could learn it was to go to a professional photographer and work as an assistant, which is exactly what I did." The man to first train him was a young photographer called Rahul Patel "probably two years older to me, also from Elphinston College". Patel then needed someone to work with him as an assistant. "For me it was a way of getting my feel of things, getting my hands-on experience, and working with (professional) equipment. The 120 mm professional cameras, the large-format cameras, or getting access to studio lights." This all set around the year 1982-83. Alex's dad, a Physics prof at Xavier's who you might probably still run into while he puts in an encouraging presence at his son's exhibitions, was cool towards the idea. Fernandes Sr. probably realised that there was just only so much value to a theoretical education, often divorced from the real needs of life. What more, he was into photography too. "Dad was quite open to the whole idea. Incidentally, it was through him that we actually met Rahul Patel. Dad knew I was a photography buff myself. I used to go to a St Xavier's College (Mumbai) dark-room as a ten year old. This used to be my summer holiday project, using his 120 (millimetre) cameras, and processing and printing film using the old negative process," as Alex puts it. MIXING CHEMICALS Alex's dad and another college-lecturer colleague would work on photography as their hobby. Alex himself would mix chemicals -- "like the Kodak D76 developers, which used to come in powder form" -- process his photographs of pet dogs, and try to print them. "Needless to say, most turned out awful," he shared with me, as we sat for a longish tete-a-tete on a cool November evening in his Caranzalem home, over some strong coffee and cheese sandwiches. Options then were limited then. Those were days when India was still on its import-substitution drives. Foreign equipment was hard to come by. Photography was probably still seen as a luxury a 'poor' country like India could ill afford. For Alex, this meant using a small Agfa Bunny camera, made by Central Camera (in Bombay), and costing about Rs 150. Rolls were cheap, but the paper for printing were costly, he recalls "That was dad's bill though," he adds. After that, it took a lot of serious reading of photography books. "That was the only way of learning then. Hands-on experience was also the most solid basis for my profession," he adds. Besides, there were not much of a choice by way of Indian photography books and magazines available. Coming from the West though, Popular Photography and American Photographer were his favourite mags. "In the Bombay of those days, you could buy these magazines on the streets at Smoker's Corner in the Fort locality, and at VT there were a couple of outlets. This place was along my regular walk from near the museum, where the studio was, to back home in Dhobitalao," Alex recalls now. The USIS Library, now called the American Library, was another good source of information of photography books. This library was at Marine Lines, though its books tended to be a little more academic, Alex recalls, traces of disappointment still showing. "The glamour in advertising photography was considered to be a high art form. That was the thing that attracted me to this field," says he. And Alex goes on to explain: "Of course, I have nothing against those in other forms -- like wedding photography. Today, I see the wedding photographer as about the most versatile guy. He does everything from portraits to reportage, and he's into capturing cakes and rings too which comes under category of table-tops. He's really a complete guy. But somehow the prestige associated with photography is still not given to that photographer." >From Mumbai to the Gulf is a three-and-half hour flight. But it made a world of a difference to what Alex saw through the lens. In 1987, he headed for Kuwait, taking his portfolio of Bombay work. Needless to say, like many a migrant from India testing the waters there, the trip was on a visitor's visa. In this constitutional monarchy on the coast of the Persian Gulf, Alex joined the Boushari Colour Film Company. They had about four studios in Kuwait City, considered high-end as far as portrait photographs went. It was managed by a German photograph called Ottmar Lange. Alex recalls now: "He was a real professional, and had a degree in photography. He was highly qualified as a photographer and a good manager, and he managed his studios that did portrait as well as advertising and commercial photography. The processing labs were really big with huge capacity machines." For some reason, Ottomar Lange felt Alex would be a good candidate for the portrait studio. Looking back, Alex says: "Maybe it was because, anyway, a lot of my portfolio involved model photographs. They showed people (as they subjects). He thought that I had the required skills in handling people." The rest, as the cliche says, is history. At least as far as the evolution of Goa's much-appreciated portrait photographer goes. DIDN'T LIKE "Ironically, I didn't like the job. One of the main problems then was communication -- talking to the customer in Arabic. In fact, I asked Ottomar whether I could get transferred to the advertising department. But I got stuck for two years there (due to some staffing problem)," says Alex. That was when he ran into another photographer, the Polish Jacek Wozniak. Wozniak proved to be a brilliant portrait photographer. Says he: "I believe, in Poland they do a lot of good portraits. He taught me a lot of tricks in the studio, and also the ability to work fast." Portrait photography is a different ball game, specially when it involves non-professional subjects coming in on a walk-in basis, rather than professional models, Alex explains. "The professional model is trained for it. They know their best angles, they are not camera-shy. With a walk-in, it's a different story. Specially when it comes to communication skills." "One of the things I learnt from Wozniak was speed. An amateur is not a very patient person. First of all, he doesn't like you pointing the camera at him. The place is dark. It's probably 15-20 minutes at the most, after which the person begins to lose interest. And it's even shorter with kids," says he. FLATTERING IMAGES? Does portrait photography provide for a somewhat more-flattering image sometimes? He says mischeviously: "I have my little collection of plug-ins and smoother skins." Lighting is important too. But Alex prefers to be "basic and practical" here. Says he: "(In the real world) you have one light source, the sun. Everything else is reflected light. But you could be a bit more dramatic and have an extra light source, or a kicker to increase ... In fashion we do it a lot, say to show a texture of the suit. That's when extra light sources would need to be added." What are his other tools? For portraits, Alex uses a meter-by-metre softbox, either single or double diffused. That depends on the quality of light he wants. Then, he uses a lot of reflectors. These could be of silver or matt-white. Or total-black cards, to deliberately introduce a shadow. A very small change in terms of reflectors could lead to a difference. He plays around with varying distances, and the types of reflectors used. "These are subtle changes which would make a difference to a portrait. With experience, these things become reflex. You don't have to think about it." What are his own preferred tools? He likes 35 mm SLRs. he finds them small, easy and lightweight to carry around. A "reasonable" zoom lens is the 35-105 lens. Another of his favourite is the 85 mm, f 1.4 portrait lens. This he describes as "very fast, quite a tele, good for a photographer to work in available-light and low-light conditions." Says he: "The one I have is a 105 mm f 2.8 Micro-Nikkor. I like this also for the really tight shots it allows me to do. It picks up very fine detail too, because it's a micro lens." Technical skills are what a lot of people put a lot of emphasis on. But is that all? "Technical skills are like your reflex action. Once you're a good driver, you don't think. You drive. Likewise, (in portrait photography) handling people is an important thing. That involves getting a person at ease in the study... trying to figure out the person." Every person who is wanting to take his portraits has a certain idea of how it should be taken. He wants to look his (and, more often, her) best, naturally. Says Alex: "Good technique is often confused with gimmickry. Or even just a showy display of equipment. I keep it simple. Technique becomes secondary. The important thing is to be spontaneous and to make those instant decisions while shooting -- for the pose, for lighting, and for expression. To shoot frame after frame looking for that perfect picture, and to know just when you have got it." He reaches for a book, and quotes the prominent photographer Dayanita Singh, who is based partly in Goa. She says: "A portrait is nothing more than what has passed between between the sitter and the photographer at a given moment. I think all the people I photograph are collaborators in the creation of this fantasy of a family." Alex too feels that a portrait photographer's skill lies in recognising that fantasy. In Kuwait, he kept honing his skills for the next 13 years, taking portraits. He shifted companies, faced the Gulf War, and came back home as a refugee -- through Iraq and Jordan. In the meantime, his family had moved back to Goa in 1990. Like many Goans who lived Mumbai their home, Alex's family remembered Goa as their home. His ancestral families hailed from Carmona (Salcete) and Curca (Tiswadi). "My grandfather got married in Bombay itself in 1925. They were really poor (when they migrated to Bombay)," he recalls. Not unusual for those times, and for the bulk of the Goan population then. But then the determination to overcome it all, and the battle to make it over the generations, is a story that offers role-models. BACK IN THE GULF After the Gulf War, Alex found himself back in the Midde-East. He worked with a Kodak distributor, Ashraf and Company Ltd. They had all the big agencies with them -- like the US photographic material and equipment-producing giant Kodak, the Japanese specialist in optics and imaging Nikon Corp, the Swedish manufacturer of medium-format cameras and photographic equipment Victor Hasselblad AB, and the prominent Swiss equipment manufacturer (of reflectors, lamp-heads, power-packs, soft-boxes, photographic umbrellas, effect lamps, special accessories and more) Broncolor. "They sent us on quite a few lighting workshops in places like Switzerland and Dubai and elsewhere, and were always upgrading our skills on equipment and technique," says he. Then, Alex took the plunge, resigned and returned home to Goa in 2001. "I'm always a Nikon user, and somehow got used to their (camera's) system," Alex says. "I picked up a lot of my digital training from my Nikon people. I can say I understood their technology and really grew with it. Both Kodak and Nikon were introducing their first digitals (around the time I got started) and showed us how these things really worked." He recalls that, in the early years of digital photography, a "top of the line" Kodak DCS 620 camera, capable of producing something like just two mega pixels photos, cost you something like a hundred thousand rupees! Now, a camera that can deliver five times that quality, costs about a third of that price. "Upto the 1980s if you're talking of professional equipment, you had to buy it off the black market, or get an aunt in the Gulf to get it for you, by dodging Customs duties. Otherwise it was ridiculously expensive," he notes. Yet, in India and the region outside it too, Bombay was still the Mecca for advertising photography. "We had clients flying in from Delhi, Bangalore and even Dubai," Alex recalls. Till then he had not experimented with other photographic forms. But in the meanwhile, he got "really good" with portraits, and recognised his forte. ON DIGITAL PHOTOGRAPHY "Between 1998 to 2000, digital trends were entering photography. Technology pushed the advertising photographers out of their business. I realized this is going to happen. By 2007, it happened. It saw the demise of the careers of a lot of commercial photographers. People were pirating things off the Net. You could buy stock photos which were digital. Only the guys at the top end could survive," says he. Digital photography was where Alex's interest in photography and computers overlapped. He has been playing around with programming BASIC and COBOL starting as early as in 1984. Alex is pro-digital photography. Says he: "There are some people who say 'film was the thing'. I think it's only fear of technology. You can still be purist as a photographer, and still use the contemporary top-of-the-line (digital) photography." He explains: "I'm from the old school myself. I'll worked with film, as a professional. Film, specially slide film, gave you very little chance for mistakes. But digital offers you opportunity. It gives you that kind of freedom that you possibly couldn't get out of film. It's a very powerful technology, and it's here to stay. It cannot get worse, it will only improve with time." Just as well, Alex was by then well and truly "stuck" in the portrait photography field. One which, you would recall, he didn't quite like initially. Says he: "Initially, I thought I was making a career mess-up by not being in advertising. But then, you discover it (portrait photography) is quite a skill. When I first opened-up in Goa (in 2004), I though I'd have an office and small gallery which show-cased my work. Or that I would create a niche market, for people who'd really pay for a good portrait -- wedding, casual or a corporate portrait." Says he with a embarrassed laugh: "In that way, I'm a very cocky guy. I knew my work was good. It was a dream, at every it was being realized in one way or the other. Even in the Gulf...." Alex recalls that portrait studios were, at one point, popular in India too. "When I was a child in the 1960s and early 1970s, there were portrait studios in Bombay, where a family would go and take a photograph. Then came the small 110 (millimetre) cameras, which people started getting in from the Gulf. Soon, the small Japanese 35 mm cameras came along, and people started clicking away at parties. The need to dress up and take photos went away as a trend," he suggests. In the Persian Gulf, the portrait photograph continued in a bigger way. Not just with the expats, but with the Arabs too. For instance, there were Goans there who would come to us on a Christmas day, all dressed up, and have their portraits taken, as he points out. In Goa, he feels people are getting interested in the portrait photograph. "I think we have the class and ability to choose fine things. People will go in for it," he says. Today too, every day is a new day for him. "It was something I enjoy. If a new client comes up to me, it's a new challenge. I even get an adrenaline rush after I finish my session. If you've been through one of my sessions, you would see how I charge up... that's required for a good portrait. Energy should be put into it." THREE SERIES While in Goa, he created three series of portraits, dealing with musicians, artists (shot for a major local art exhibition) and tiatrists (as those acting in the popular local Konkani stage are called). Says he: "The musicians were a little difficult. For some reason, some seemed reluctant to cooperate. Once they got into the studio they were okay though. On the other hand, the artists -- perhaps because they were artists -- built a different equations. In fact, tiatrists and musicians who came to the studio was not a problem. They become the collaborator very easily." (Laughs.) He's very upbeat about working out of Goa. Says Alex: "I think there are a lot of people who come here and do creative work. Including writers, painters. In 22 years as a photographer, I was not able to produce the kind of work that I managed in three years in Goa. I don't want to boast, but Goa is a good place. This was a paradise to play for me. I couldn't have done it in another country or even in Bombay. Sometimes Goa gets called a laid-back place. But it gives you time to ponder, think or create." Would he consider passing on his skills to a new generation, specially in Goa? "To be able to teach, you need to be accepted. If that acceptance comes, I will do it," he says. Alex loves the field so much that he cannot think of himself doing anything else. But if he didn't land in photography, what else could he have considered doing? "The options were joining the Merchant Navy," he says and laughs. "Maybe I would have started a restaurant. Ask Mom, I cook. She grumbles that I mess up the kitchen, but I cook!" Sebastian Rosario Fernandes, Alex's dad, did his MSc in Physics and BE in Electronics, from the City and Guild's of London, and taught at Xavier's in Mumbai for 20 years. After that, he moved on to start his own air-conditioning and refrigeration business. "My mum is the best cook in the world," says Alex, not without a tinge of pride showing. Who are his role-models as photographers? Yousuf Karsh is quick on his list. Karsh (1908-2002), a Canadian photographer of Armenian birth, is considered one of the most famous and accomplished portrait photographers of all time. Then there's Annie Leibovitz (b. 1949). This prominent US portrait photographer's style is seen as being marked by a close collaboration between the photographer and the subject. ("I like her portraits with John Lennon and Yoko Ono.") Richard Avedon (1923-2004), another of his favourites, was an American photographer known for extending his fashion photography into the realm of fine art. What does he see as the crucial ingredients for success in this field? Says Alex: "Communication skills. The ability to create an atmosphere so your sitter, so that he or she collaborates. In any sense, in terms of costumes, in terms of a smile, and in terms of a pose." "It's all about that fantasy. We are creating a fantasy which will be the image. How that fantasy is created is between the sitter and me. I have to create that environment for maybe even a frown," he says. Alex gives the example of Karsh getting a frown out of Churchill, by pulling out a cigar from his mouth. "In addition to the above, what's also important is lighting and backdrops, which also play part of this whole drama. Most people, going by their instinct, even me depending on my mood, would not like somebody intruding with a camera. It's a natural reflex action for most human beings. But in studio portraits, things are different (as those who come anyway voluntarily opt to get their photograph taken)." Do some people never make a good photo? "It's part of a phobia. And it's part of my job to diffuse that phobia," says Alex, cockily, to use his own description for himself. "I get such comments all the time, with people coming in who say 'I don't photograph very well.' In turn, I just tell them, 'But I'm very good at my job.' This is the line which usually works. Time after time. It helps to infuse confidence in people. Maybe make them relax and inject some humour into the situation." What next, by way of work and plans and exhibitions? He's not too sure. "It was suggested that I do (a series on) politicians, but I don't know," Alex says with a mischevious laugh. "At this point, I don't know. But there definitely has to be some kind of continuation. I'm a Jazz fan, and I like music. So, let's see..." ENDS -- FN * http://fredericknoronha.wordpress.com http://twitter.com/fn M +91-9822122436 P +91-832-2409490 http://fredericknoronha.multiply.com/ http://goa1556.goa-india.org Sent from Pune, MH, India "Why torture yourself when life will do it for you?" - Laura Walker
