alessandra lives here Photo

Photographer’s Note

She is Alessandra, a very sweet girl.
She was very shy when she saw me, and went inside her home. But her aunt wanted me to take a photo of her and called her back outside. I started talking to her aunt, with my camera at hip level, and acted as if I was not looking at her. That´s when I took this one... After a while I showed her how the camera worked, I let her take a few shots, and she ended up being very comfortable around me... I have some nice close portraits of her, but first wanted to introduce her to you, and show her surroundings.

This is her house, around 2 meters wide. Her aunt keeps all those things we consider garbage at the front door, in case she needs any one day...
The door is always open, maybe to let natural light in, as they have no window. There´s a cloth curtain that serves as a door during the day.
There is another room built upstairs, with some clothes hanging to dry.

Her sandals are the same I told you about some time ago. THE Brazilian sandal brand is Havaianas www.havaianas.com.br: 5 pairs a second, 210 million sandals per year. 2,2 billion pairs made and sold since they started operating in 1962. All size 37 in a line would circle the globe 50 times. Every 3 Brazilians, 2 of them buy 1 pair of havaianas per year!!

They are very much in fashion all over the world now, here in Brazil they are as common as having a toothbrush... (no, wait, maybe even more!!) I mean: EVERY Brazilian has at LEAST 1 pair of this simple 1 color sandals...

price ranging from:
U$2 at any supermarket here, basic 1 color, rainbow of colors to chose from...
U$4-10 for newer models, models with special features like combination of colors, thicker sole ...
U$100 at Galleries Lafayette in Paris embroidered with plastic beads
U$4000 white sandals embroidered with gold,
U$22,000 black sandals embroidered with gold and diamonds, these last two sold by the very well known brazilian jeweller H.S.Stern... (hstern.com.br)

Rinie_Hoff, manny, Zanni, ruffin, Galeota, Ginebra, bfly, ebrakke, smello, Darren, jhonny_blue, Jeppe, Philip, Pompey, touristdidi, Olga, Dionysos, eduaraujo, osh, maloutim has marked this note useful

Critiques | Translate

Zanni (5885) 2004-05-12 0:09

It is incredible to see in 2004 many people still living in these inhuman conditions. Sad is to think that this disparity between few lucky persons and all the others increases instead reducing.

clodreno (0) 2004-05-12 1:53

Hello elena,
this is a nice image. your framing is good and the colors vibrant, I like it.
sorry i must stay short...

Rinie_Hoff (9332) 2004-05-12 2:14

Hi Elena, very good shot of this girl, together with the notes of her environment it makes a small documentary. The angle is good, and shows the girl very well. The composition overall is very good. It's sad that people have to live this way. Your notes are excellent.

maciekda (19587) 2004-05-12 3:21

hi Elena, very nice daily picture, a document showing a piece of life of this girl, good background oriding some context to the scene, good stuff

manny (21378) 2004-05-12 3:45

Thanks for introducing us to Alessandra. I am looking forward to see more of her. The picture is good. I like the composition and how you showed her context.

A really interesting note to go with this interesting shot.

RGatward (19737) 2004-05-12 4:04

Great shot and fascinating note. This looks like it might be a scene from 'City of God', are such places a bit safer in SP than Rio?

Galeota (10329) 2004-05-12 4:39

Nice photograph and an intreresting note. Thank you for sharing this one as well as your thoughts.

Ginebra (0) 2004-05-12 5:01

A very touching shot and note as well. Looking forward to see more of this kind of pics. We should all be aware of how unfortunate some people are and how lucky we are in this "safe" part of the world.

ianmcall (1213) 2004-05-12 5:29

Good colours light and composition. Her bored expression suits the place.

bfly (5737) 2004-05-12 10:08

dear Elena..what a wonderfull note and what an amazing picture..I loved your story overall but, that you took this picture candid is really very important for me..(I am shy myself too and try to do this most of the time)..
your note to this picture ending up with a usd 22.000 sandal is hurting..too much in fact..I like you very much, not only your pictures..

MARIUS (2240) 2004-05-12 16:02 [Comment]

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Seypher (115) 2004-05-13 0:09

Mais uma para o tema "Small Brazilians"! =)

Isabelle (9014) 2004-05-14 22:43

Essa é A foto, Elena!
Estranhamente bela e colorida no seu horror.
a nota, nem preciso dizer, está excelente.
queria tê-la feito. parabéns.

smello (69) 2004-05-15 23:13 [Comment]

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Darren (6815) 2004-05-16 0:03

This is a really good shot Elena. Normally, I would say that having the girl looking outside of the frame is a bit of a mistake, but for this shot here, I think it really works. It sort of suggests how she would like to escape from her surroundings. Colors here are very nice as well. The whole shot seems just a little artifacty, was this a crop from a much larger frame? Anyways, very nice work Elena.

jhonny_blue (4938) 2004-05-23 10:03

Wonderful composition but, at the same time, sad...
Good colours and good girl expression.
Congratulations

Jeppe (18623) 2004-06-04 3:19

Thanks for sharing this fine capture of that young girl and her world / home.

The note both touching and funny/informative - very fine work Elena - thanks for sharing.

Philip (364) 2004-06-22 19:16

Elena, not too bad considering shooting from the hip. Sometimes the poor are the happiest of people and as such the most blessed. Nice shot!

Pompey (1117) 2004-06-28 16:28

Wonderful, sad, beautiful picture. The note was excellent and very informative. I have also tried this method of shooting from the hip, when i didn't want to let people know i was taking their picture.
Thanks for sharing this with us Elena.

touristdidi (8561) 2004-07-08 11:14 [Comment]

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Dionysos (1232) 2004-12-06 5:21

I know this life style (!). We have similar so-called houses named 'gecekondu'.

Your great note and this photo tell many, many things and there is no need to talk about technical details for this one.

osh (372) 2005-12-07 12:23

very nice "real" photograph and very useful note.

Murtaza (24) 2007-06-17 19:27

Very Interesting Shot