This image dates from the first year of Castello-Lopes’ photographic practice, when he was already 31 years old, yet it depicts a theme that would be constant throughout his photographic career – water. As the author states in an interview with Luísa Costa Dias, ‘water is an element that has always fascinated me […]. It surely wasn’t a coincidence that I began by photographing underwater.’* Castello-Lopes indeed took up photography in connection with his passion for diving, following a diving course in France in 1955, when he bought a Foca camera, only replaced in 1957 by a Leica M3, used by his great inspiration, Cartier-Bresson.

 

In this photograph of a washing line, the human element – which was Castello-Lopes’ primary subject matter during the 1950s – is only hinted at, with Castello-Lopes placing more importance on the presence of water as a compositional element. In relation to this subject he stated: ‘Water, and particularly puddles, reflect light in a paradoxical fashion. Photographing a puddle is like showing that, contrary to the law of sunlight, it can actually be reflected by a pool and, strangely, appear from below. The paradox lies in this reflection which sometimes acts as a mirror.’**

 

 

* Luísa Costa Dias, ‘Uma Conversa com Gérard Castello-Lopes’ in Gérard Castello-Lopes: Oui Non, exhibition catalogue, Lisbon: Fundação Centro Cultural de Belém, 2004, p.1.

 

** Idem, p. 13.

 

 

 

JO

 

August 2011