País de Abril

The photographs on this site were taken by me while I lived in Portugal. All but three of the pictures are of Portugal; the others, landscapes, are of northern Spain. All photographs were taken on a 35mm camera, enlarged and developed using classical silver-based chemistry. The colors on some of the final prints are, with one exception, caused by additional chemistry on the final silver image. The one exception is the window, which I colored using watercolors, and, yes, a brush. At the time I started developing and printing black-and-white photographs, I had a lot of old but useful chemicals at my disposal which went into the first developer solutions I made, for both film and paper. I then became very interested in the process and have continued to mix my own developers, which has a considerable impact on the tone of the final image. As a final word, I do not take silver-based photography to be superior to digital photography. It is simply an entirely different endeavour.


About the title: 'País de Abril' means 'Land of April'. It is also a line in a poem written by Manuel Alegre, later interpreted by Amália Rodrigues. She sang the poem in Fado style a long, long time ago (listen). I have always been very fond of the poem and ruthlessly snatched the line as the title for my own website. The song has a double meaning in that it refers to a political event, and to Portugal as a country. In 1974, Portugal liberated itself in a largely peaceful revolution, after having endured a dictatorship that had lasted for 48 years. The revolution occurred in April and is commemorated on April 25th, which is the obvious inspiration for the poem. Manuel Alegre became very well known for his political poems before, during, and after the revolution. Politics aside, Manuel Alegre's poetry is full of melancholy and beauty, just like the month of April. And Portugal, just like the month of April, is a stormy and temperamental country, full of melancholy and beauty, of contradictions and -- changes of light. I have been very happy there.

almeidaa[at]uncw.edu