This apparently banal representation of a couple on the beach refers to the condition and the pertinence of photography as a singular record of the instant, opposing the continuity of the moving image.

It is the out-of-focus black mark at the top right-hand corner – leaving or entering the image, we don’t know which – that emphasises this aspect of photography by raising the question of the instant immediately following the click of the camera shutter and of what is outside the frame. That mark introduces a disturbance and a strangeness in contrast with the attitude of the photographed couple.

The title Sós em Moledo [Alone in Moledo] is a provocation in the face of that ‘ghostly’ apparition, sensed not just in the mark at the top right-hand corner but also in a ‘wash’ that covers almost the entire photograph, challenging the title given by the author and relating the work to a surreal dimension.

José Oliveira
2022