A guide and interpreter arranged by the Embassy to accompany Lemos and his wife, the female figure in the image poses side-on with a smile. Eli/Ely, a Brazilian living in Tokyo, captured from the waist up and turning her neck to the camera, emanates serenity and wellbeing.

Against a landscape background of abundant trees, she occupies the central vertical of the image, in a posture commonly used in conventional portraiture. Without accessories or the suggestion of an event or specific situation, the portrait takes on an absolute simplicity.

On her harmonious face, thoughtful for a moment, we find the strongest radiant force of the image. In it converge the landscape, our low-angle gaze, the contours of the torso and its minimalist clothing, the patch of sky between the trees and situated behind, the mystery of it, like that of any human being, and the friendly relationship existing between the photographer and the person being photographed.

Leonor Nazaré
Curator at the CAM