Description

I used to arrive in Accra from the north, but on my last visit to the city before the pandemic I chose a different layover and the plane came from the south. Sitting on the right-hand side of the enormous Airbus I looked at the coast. At one point, I noticed a huge ship run aground in a large, deserted bay, far from the city, which fascinated me.

I couldn’t help it! I found an experienced guide who managed to find the place. The journey took three hours, via a road with indescribable traffic and, afterwards, a little longer on dubious roads and tracks. The surrounding villages were small with a dwindling population. There were no swimmers at the beach. Another couple were passing through on their way to some other destination.

I met a friendly youth, who was attending secondary school but lived in a nearby village, where he helped his parents in a small shop. We stopped there, lost, looking for the ship. He knew where it was and offered to accompany us the rest of the way. He was a brilliant conversationalist. I regret not being able to remember his name. But I remember his person, the colours, because it corresponds to the reality not interpreted by my eyes. In fact, this issue of the zine includes several colour flashes, something not seen before in this project, which are the expression of this transported reality, without intermediations.

He told me several stories, prophecies involving ghosts and angels, which gave this issue of Zine Photo its theme. The first story of this issue, which I captured on video, is his.

And the ship was there, majestic, standing up to time, just as I had imagined it when I first glimpsed it from the heavens. A noble vessel still, witness to many voyages and who knows how many sightings of ghosts or angels recounted to us by this Zine Photo!

— x –

This twelfth issue of Zine Photo will be the last. A project with twelve chapters that each make up part of a whole. The whole is a book of short stories in black and white, independent of one another, each of which can be read individually. Each of them is a whole. Together they form a larger, unique whole.

Zine Photo was a temporary editorial project, which is now coming to an end. It will surely give rise to other projects, since these will always be possible as long as the gaze has the capacity to see beyond the obvious.

João Miguel Barros

Specifics

Magazine in closed format of 40 x 28,5 cm, 40 pages of 160 gr (4 cover of 270 gr), offset printed with finishing stitched to the short stitch line. The magazine will be packed and sealed.

Edition

Limited edition of 300.

Price

Macau / HK: 180 HKD + Shipping cost
Rest of the World: 20 EUR + Shipping cost

Add to cart

Description

Until recently, a friend of mine had a small plane. He had it for many years. He treated the plane as if it were a person, with all his care and kindness. He even gave it a person’s name: Pipeta Saratoga. A strange name to be sure, but names are given to people, and sometimes to planes, in the hope that they become unique in their identity and behaviour.

Planes transport people and their dreams, but also their fears. Especially of those who are afraid of flying in aircraft that never managed to grow to the size of spaceships.

While it is true that aeroplanes have a human hand at their helm, almost always secure and accurate, and that their metal bodies are decked with sophisticated technology, they also carry the fates of those travelling within.

However reliable and well cared for the Saratoga was, for me, it was always the small plane that relied on a single engine roaring indelicately at its nose.

My friend took me to the airfield a few times. I never admitted it to him, but I didn’t always feel very comfortable. “Planes that have lost their engines can still glide”, he would offer as a consolation. “The Saratoga has never let me down”, he would add, “and I’m sure it won’t today!” And indeed, it didn’t.

In fact, it never did let him down, until the very end. Until the Saratoga changed its life. And owner. Of my friend, a lifetime of gratitude remains.  Together with these and a few other images, showing that small pieces of time can serve to tell a timeless story.

João Miguel Barros

Specifics

Magazine in closed format of 40 x 28,5 cm, 40 pages of 160 gr (4 cover of 270 gr), offset printed with finishing stitched to the short stitch line. The magazine will be packed and sealed.

Edition

Limited edition of 300.

Price

Macau / HK: 180 HKD + Shipping cost
Rest of the World: 20 EUR + Shipping cost

Add to cart

Description

Unlike previous issues, this Zine Photo #10 includes three condensed stories that could be developed with another breath, and which appear here arranged in three short autonomous chapters.

The first focuses on faith, mixing symbology gathered in Catholic and Taoist places of worship. Whatever one’s professed beliefs, it is in faith that human beings seek to anticipate the direction of the wind that blows.

The second shows some images of a small family factory, a traditional tannery, and the machinery used in the process of transforming sheepskins and fox furs. Certain traditional crafts have been lost in the whirlwind of civilisation and in the confrontation with environmental standards.

Finally, the last chapter records moment zero of the gradual process of reconversion of Monte Vale de Luzelos, in Portugal, once abandoned by its population, who moved away from the countryside to seek the challenge of urban life. The return to the land, its recovery, is another way of anticipating the blowing of the wind.

João Miguel Barros

Specifics

Magazine in closed format of 40 x 28,5 cm, 40 pages of 160 gr (4 cover of 270 gr), offset printed with finishing stitched to the short stitch line. The magazine will be packed and sealed.

Edition

Limited edition of 300.

Price

Macau / HK: 180 HKD + Shipping cost
Rest of the World: 20 EUR + Shipping cost

Add to cart

Description

The former convent and court of Boa Hora

Past. The convent of Boa Hora was founded in 1633, in the old Pátio das Comédias, in the centre of Lisbon. Over the years, it was the retreat of three religious congregations, until Religious Orders were abolished in Portugal in 1834. The convent was then used as quarters for voluntary fire-fighters and as the headquarters of the National Guard.
In 1843, it was handed over to the Ministry of Justice, which turned it into a court. During the Estado Novo regime, the Boa Hora operated as the Plenary Court, which carried out the task of trying political prisoners and all those who opposed the dictatorial regime that governed Portugal until 1974.
After the transition to democracy, the Boa Hora continued to function as a court until it closed for good in 2009.
After it closed, and despite the site being sporadically and partially used for other activities, the building fell into a process of progressive degradation.

Present. Despite various and repeated promises, as of January 2022 the old convent and court of Boa Hora remains abandoned and has been so for more than a decade. And, like all abandoned spaces, it is now inhabited by the memories and characters of the many stories constructed on the basis of scripts that do not always lend dignity to the history of a population who, in spite of everything, can only be proud of their past.
Abandoned spaces are intimidating. Silence oppresses, causes anxiety, and there is no image that can fully express the sadness of looking at empty walls, some of them destroyed, the corrosion of time on the already damaged floor, the lack of use, the broken furniture and accumulated litter.

Future. This Zine Photo reveals the abandonment that the public authorities have bestowed on a space that belongs to historical heritage and collective memory, while announcing promises of future uses – all insufficient and short-sighted – that are nevertheless systematically unfulfilled.
The former convent should be converted into a space linked to the cultural and creative industries and in which to incubate new projects, giving it meaning and a future. And, so that we don’t lose the memories of the courts that operated there, and particularly of those who were sentenced there for the ‘crime’ of opinion and free thought, the Boa Hora should also house a Judiciary Museum, to celebrate the values of Justice, Human Dignity and Rule of Law, and thus save us from forgetting.

Specifics

Magazine in closed format of 40 x 28,5 cm, 40 pages of 160 gr (4 cover of 270 gr), offset printed with finishing stitched to the short stitch line. The magazine will be packed and sealed.

Edition

Limited edition of 300.

Description

I have reached the age of those who look at trains with a certain romantic gaze built upon many imagined journeys.

When I was a child, trains were slower and travelled at a rhythm mismatched from our thoughts. They allowed for inner contemplation, which could sometimes hurt, revealing not just the good, but also the bad that issued from the soul. And they gave us time to look at the vast, open landscapes extending into the horizon, and to look forward to the future even before it was there.

This project encapsulates a train journey between the cities of Lisbon and Porto, then back to Lisbon. The high-speed Alfa-Pendular train (Pendolino) shortens the distance, taking us to the north of Portugal and back again on the same day. Everything is different now with trains speeding us to our destination faster than the time we need to enter the day of tomorrow.

What memory records is a rainy day and a blurry landscape. And to bear witness to it, this Zine Photo #08.

Specifics

Magazine in closed format of 40 x 28,5 cm, 40 pages of 160 gr (4 cover of 270 gr), offset printed with finishing stitched to the short stitch line. The magazine will be packed and sealed.

Edition

Limited edition of 300.

Price

Macau / HK: 180 HKD + Shipping cost
Rest of the World: 20 EUR + Shipping cost

Add to cart

Description

People are central to the Zine Photo project, but this number goes beyond that rule. This is the first magazine using a random criterion, which forgoes telling a story, and that focuses only on animals and the plant world. That is, in other species.

Some of these images depict a reality that is less perceptible to the human eye. They may however come as a surprise, fulfilling yet another important function of photography, notably, to make us think and perceive from another angle the same truth!

Specifics

Magazine in closed format of 40 x 28,5 cm, 40 pages of 160 gr (4 cover of 270 gr), offset printed with finishing stitched to the short stitch line. The magazine will be packed and sealed.

Edition

Limited edition of 300.

Price

Macau / HK: 180 HKD + Shipping cost
Rest of the World: 20 EUR + Shipping cost

Add to cart

Description

There is an enigma that looms in the imagination of travelers called the Kingdom of Bhutan, a country with an agriculture-based livelihood, wedged in the Himalayas, between China and India, where distances are slow to travel.

It is well-known the index that measures happiness in Bhutan, and serves as an indicator for the country’s evolution, based on the preservation of the environment, economic and social development, through a serious governance in the preservation of traditional values and the promotion of culture.

The people are genuinely welcoming and friendly. And it is from the people that the project “Real Life in Bhutan”, not yet completed, started to be built, focused on social interactions, workplaces, places of worship, or education.
Time in Bhutan is measured differently. It is a time without time, as the time of people who aspire and want to be happy.

Specifics

Magazine in closed format of 40 x 28,5 cm, 40 pages of 160 gr (4 cover of 270 gr), offset printed with finishing stitched to the short stitch line. The magazine will be packed and sealed.

Edition

Limited edition of 300.

Price

Macau / HK: 180 HKD + Shipping cost
Rest of the World: 20 EUR + Shipping cost

Add to cart

Description

Akuapem is a special place located in southern Ghana. Every year, in September, the traditional Odwira Festival is celebrated there, integrating multiple cultural, religious, traditional and sports activities. Among them, we may find boxing.
This project brings together two sets of images of various fights and moments occurring in the said event, in a crowded public square.
The first consists of images that have been transformed into an abstract narrative, depicting the movements and dynamics of the fighting. The second set illustrates some details of the people that stand around the arena, namely the fighters and the judges, as well as of those who watched and vibrated with the successive fights throughout the night.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS:

My special thanks go to Alex Ntiamoah-Boakye, who organized the boxing event of Akuapem, for fully supporting me in photographing this project.

Specifics

Magazine in closed format of 40 x 28,5 cm, 40 pages of 160 gr (4 cover of 270 gr), offset printed with finishing stitched to the short stitch line. The magazine will be packed and sealed.

Edition

Limited edition of 300.

Price

Macau / HK: 180 HKD + Shipping cost
Rest of the World: 20 EUR + Shipping cost

Add to cart