People often talk about the timeless quality of B&W; however, it isn’t often that we see the timelessness of B&W brought so vividly to life.

Rui Pires has done precisely that.

Rui is a photographer from Portugal, whose Rural Moments project just left us speechless.

One of the joys of running this Web site is hearing from people from places such as Portugal, Australia and elsewhere, who are doing wonderful B&W work (and who are also kind enough to tell us how much they appreciate www.bwphotopro.com.)  ALL PHOTOGRAPHS COPYRIGHT RUI PIRES, NO REPRODUCTION PERMITTED WHATSOEVER.

Rui Pires talked to us about his project, and about his B&W work in general:

Where in Portugal were the rural photos taken?

 

The Rural Moments Project photos are taken in Center/North of Portugal, in Arada Mountains, Caramulo Mountains and Barroso Region in extreme north of Portugal, (near the border with Spain); they’re all Medium Format, made with Mamiya RZ PROII and Mamiya 645 AFD.

 

How much of your work is in B&W?   

I´m essentially a B&W photographer. I use B&W film in all my documentary photos. I think B&W is a much better fit for rural images, giving them a more timeless look. Also, I think color can be very distracting, getting in the way of the feelings I want to transmit to viewers.

Who are your photographic heroes, and why? 

The greats of classic B&W: Bresson, Doisneau, Eisenstaedt, Adams, Capa and Salgado. Adams, for the great advances in lab work, resulting in such wonderful landscape photographs. The others because all of them dignify the people they photograph, and for me, we must always dignify our subjects. And most important, we most know the people we photograph, live with them, spend time with them, talk, feel their feelings, suffer when they suffer, know their problems. Then, the photography comes in a natural way. 

 

How do you deal w/ temptations of digital? 

It is not an issue for me; I feel digital is too artificial, and so it’s impossible to obtain the look and texture of film. So I don’t use digital in this kind of work.

Are you a pro or amateur? How old are you? Have you studied photography? 

I’m an amateur, 40 years old. I’ve studied photography, on my own, since 1983. I constantly study the work of photographers I like, read many books, test new processes, new equipment, lenses. I’m always testing. 

Tell us about the "Rural Moments" project.

All the photos from "Rural Moments" project tell a story, a story of the last communitarian rural villages in Portugal. This project will end with a book named "Rural Moments," but i think I’m still only in the middle of the project, I need one or two more years to finish it. 

I started two years ago, and I try to take all the important moments of life of these people. Many things have happened during this last two years. Some transformations in the villages, and unfortunately some of the people are no longer with us. One of my favorite people from this series just died recently, Maria. Maybe in a few years there are no more people in these places, and for young people see to this, they may only see this world through photography. 

 

Maria :  http://1x.com/photos/member/16884/25449/

 

Tell us about your tech approach: cameras, lenses, film. 

For me there is no art without technique. So, it’s important to have a good relation between you and your cameras, to use them instinctually and not to lose time thinking about how to use them. Good lenses are of course important, and for me, Mamiya-Sekor produces wonderful lenses. For direct sunlight I prefer the old Kodak Tri-X because of the superb grays ever in difficult light conditions, for cloudy days I use Kodak TMAX or Ilford HP5. Then, normal development, because now I can adjust brightness and contrast, etc. in scanning and manipulation.

For printing, I prefer the old wet printing, but now most of time I use ink jet printers, now these printers can do a very good job.

 

You use the larger MF/LF frame and shorter depth of field wonderfully; could you talk a bit about how important is it to you to have that bigger negative, and to be able to isolate your subjects w/ and out of focus background?   

Of course, the bigger the format, the bigger the bokeh. So, in medium format is easy to isolate the subject in the frame, in order to direct the viewer’s attention, to show them where to look. Also to avoid distracting objects in background.