January is an insanely long month, the longest of the year, so long it feels like it has been 90 days since I returned back home from another of my winter solstice trips, with so many happening in between. Without further ado, some random shots with no particular order or meaning of that lengthy month.
Dos mesmos autores de “duas horas de directo de autocarro em dia de derby”, se havia dúvidas que estamos numa era onde o entretenimento é mais importante que a informação…
Feels good to get to my commute snaps after a trip, even if a rather short one. Somehow is the reminder I’m back to the routine, a good one.
“It turns us into the worst version of ourselves while convincing us that we’re at our best."
Despite travelling I’ve started to grow a kind of love/hate relationship with it, and this article kind hits the nail on many of my dilemmas. At some point I thought that travel makes us more tolerant, by having a wider perspective and experience other realities, and while that’s not wrong it isn’t as straightforward as I once believed. Often is more self-centred that people like to say (and I’m including myself in it…), both for the one who travelled or those back home: the questions usually are more in the “what have you done?” than the “what’s it like?”, and I don’t really like love talking about myself.
A quite relevant, and forgotten, topic: somehow we forgot the vulcanic activity may have a bigger impact on people than “look at that neat fire spewing from a hole in the ground”…
[In Iceland, we got used to enjoying our ‘Disney volcanoes’. Now the threat is real]
Dia de coisas novas na Narrativa: o grande “Jamaika” do José Sarmento Matos, pendurado nas paredes e num belíssimo livro!
Beber vinho branco a acompanhar o cozido? 🤦♂️
Esta é a minha indignação de hoje.
Random shots from last week, lingering in my camera roll
The first weeks of the year are always a time for retreat for me, a time to lay low and look ahead. Last week was just that, after the rush of the end of year, with festivities and travels, eagerly waiting to slow down, so much that even the desire to go out and take photos was put on hold. The exception is when you get a nice view from the window.
Como vejo pouca TV, em especial em horário nobre, é fácil ficar surpreendido quando acontece. Achava que meia-hora de directo da CMtv, só com um reboque de um carro, seria uma das maiores perdas de tempo de sempre. Até começar a inutilidade desta coisa na SIC onde famosos cantam mascarados…
Spoiler: it’s Alice in Chains. But I agree with James, AIC is definitely the 90’s Seattle band I return to more often these days. Jerry Cantrell is a genius.
[The grunge band James Hetfield called “timeless”] faroutmagazine.co.uk/the-grung…
In a territory that gets emptier each year, where traditions slowly dwindle, every one of those that still thrives, or is even recovered by people that are not willing to give up yet, feels like a sign a hope that not all is lost. Really happy to finally see this red mask back to the streets of Vale de Porco, hoping to be able to see it again and again in the upcoming years.
One of the most beautiful masks of the winter traditions of Trás-Os-Montes is also one of the most challenging to photograph.. The single masked figure is constantly running from door to door, with very few breaks, and always surrounded by men who guide him through the streets, because of the very limited visibility of the heavy mask. Except when there’s something in the costume that needs some urgent repair.
The fog that has been the norm throughout Trás-Os-Montes this end of year.
Estamos quase em 2024, e ainda há malta a meter posts nas redes sociais que o telemóvel avariou e perderam todos os contactos… 🤷🏻
Someone once told me at Constantim that the problem isn’t finding people to dance at each front door of the village, is having someone that actually opens the door…
All these Winter Solstice rituals are very different but have one thing in common, at least here in Portugal, there’s always one or more characters that go to each house, where who lives there welcomes them (and their entourage) and celebrate together. If those doors remain shut, which is more and more common, then all this becomes just another parade.
The two kinds of roads you get at Trás-Os-Montes.
Galhofa. Wrestling on top of straw in the barns of Trás-Os-Montes, where showing one’s strength goes hand in hand with local rivalries. Because not everything related with winter solstice has to do with masks.
Yesterday, when I wrote about masks becoming less important to me as I go more often to these masked traditions, this is a bit why: the joy of celebration, the sharing of an identity, those were subtle things I was referring to. The kind of things that actually drive me more to go there than just the mistery of the masks and costumes.
Not on purpose, but today the photo I picked from today’s visit to Grijó de Parada was more in tune to that.
I often tell everyone that the more I go to masked traditions, at least in this corner of Europe, the less important the mask and the costume feels to me. It still is, a lot, don’t get me wrong, but there are so many other subtle things that it feels not fair to look only at that one.
But today, as I quickly browsed through my pictures from my return to Ousilhão, one that caught my eye was one where the mask is the main character.
I’d love to be more consistent, but things aren’t as linear as that 😁
