Pepe Brix is an Azorean adventurer who by genetic inheritance has become a navigator of the human retina around the world. His work, in the area of photojournalism, focuses on human nature in confrontation with nature, resulting in images that are authentic works of art from the everyday life of the various peoples and from their daily struggles that are eternalized at the moment he hits the click botton.
How does someone from an island, Santa Maria, become a photojournalist?
Pepe Brix: This has to do with my family history. My grandfather before coming to the Azores was a circus performer, he toured until Santa Maria, and had enough of that wandering life, he ended up selling his share of the circus, he decided to buy a camera a la minute and began to make a photograph in the Azores. As the years went by, he was very old and passed the Business to my father who, as a professional, gave it continuity and I was born in the middle of this photographic commotion, I ended up getting a taste for the craft. One of the things I remember, which influenced my decision to be a photojournalist, was precisely the work my grandfather left behind, reports of some accidents that happened on the island, cultural and social events and some of these images were so striking that made me gain a taste for the profession.
I want to address one of your projects, the A2053N code, how does it come about in your life?
PB: This project appears after a sequence of trips that I had made, by Peru and the USA. Then I went to India and Nepal and one of the things I was photographing was a fishing community in South India. When I returned to Portugal I spent a year preparing a cycle of exhibitions in the Azores and the mainland, divided in two movements, one with photos about Nepal and another with images of India. Then in one of those trips that I was not expecting, I went to Faial Island, in a volleyball competition, I ended up finding a great friend of mine, Henrique Ramos, who asked me what I was doing, I told him I had been wandering the Asian continent and was looking for something to photograph soon, he is a consultant in the area of fisheries and was responsible for the Portuguese operators who fish for cod in Newfoundland, an propose me a job as an observer on one of the fish vessels. Obviously I had to do train for a few days to be able to practice this profession and there I was almost blindfolded to Canada, went to Gafanha da Nazaré to embark on Joana Princesa and spent three and a half months on board with this crew of 34 people and collect images about their work environment.
What were the biggest challenges of this trip? What did you have to take into account? And what are the difficulties in terms of photography?
PB: In terms of photography the greatest difficulties arose when the sea was bad, the ship moved more, when it snowd ice sheets were created on deck and then in fact photographing was not difficult, it was, more dangerous to physically walk, it required some care. In photographic terms as in any space we ended up adapting to the light conditions and I even had time for that. The biggest difficulty I encountered exceeded the technical conditions, it was much more demanding in personal terms, like the time that you embarked without coming to land, you spend months without seeing anyone else, it is only those 34 people who luckily I got on very well, with who I still maintain contact with and I have a huge appreciation. But the truth is that you are isolated, you do not have a television, you do not have a mobile network, you do not have internet, you have nothing and there were days when the sea was very bad and I could not sleep very well because you're always falling from the bunk and all these conditions were more difficult to overcome than any photographic technical question.
You said that the crew received you well, in terms of capturing images, you have some very beautiful, almost intimate close-ups, they did not feel embarrassed or uncomfortable?
PB: When you photograph someone there is always a care to be taken and in a work of this type, or in any project of photojournalism, there must be a prior preparation when you are going to photograph someone, so there is a relationship, there is a commitment from who photograps and all this happens when you know these people, when they get to know you and when you create bonds to somehow feel yourself involved. I also cannot capture the image of a person when I feel that I am not connected to this human being, it seems almost hypocritical thing to be wanting to pass a message that I did not understand and that care is transversal to all my photojournalism work.
How did you get the opportunity to post the photos on National Geographic (NG)?
PB: After some editing work on this project that was made aboard this ship, a few months after a maturation of the work I ended up sending a pdf to NG Portugal that ended up finding it cool and publishing it.
How did you do the selection of the photos? After all, it was three and a half months on board of a ship where you took thousands of photographs, was there a thread?
PB: When you are doing the images from the heart, when you do something out of passion, when everything happens, you cannot get rid of it. Basically what happened was I was always photographing, the second part of the day was to edit the images that I made, that allowed me to get to land with the job half done, already had pre-selected photos. It is always important to take a tour of all the photos to confirm that these are the most significant and strong images. There, at the moment, you can be emotionally "snapped" to some of the images and later come to the conclusion that they bring nothing new to the story. Sometimes it is necessary to shake it off and forget them, it is not a very easy process, but it is important in the editing and since I had more or less done all this work before, when I came to land I had all this process facilitated. It's all step by step, deep down what happens is that when you get distracted from this work, you can know better what story you want to tell the audience that will see these images, then is to see which are the best photos to illustrate each one of these steps and the final process is to edit the best ones for each chapter.
So what's the history of the A2053N zip code?
PB: The idea is to show the beauty of these cod fishing epics, which today people do not know exist. It was also the message that cod fishers spend 7 to 8 months at sea and only the rest on land, often the ship is almost their home. The title of the work is the registration of the ship Joana Princesa, was to take up this concept of a zip code lik home, that I applied in this project.
Now speaking of another project, "in the route of the spots" you did this work subsequently, why? Did you win the taste of the fishing vessels?
PB: This work curiously was already thought before the code A2053N, I am from the Azores, I have always lived with fishermen, with the sea and I feel this strong connection. It arose from my desire to explore an Azorean theme, so it is very easy to come across the sea and that is what happened. Shortly before that, I had done something completely different than it had been a motorcycle trip, three Portuguese around the world.
Was the trip Lisbon, Beijing, Lisbon?
PB: Yes.
These tuna fishing vessels are much smaller, with little room for people to move, and what were the challenges in these pictures in such a small space?
PB: The privacy in a boat of 16 meters is always smaller than in one of 80, as you can imagine and the relation of the size of the boat to the number of crew is also not functional, in a boat of 80 meters you have 34 crew and in one of 16 you have 11 people on board, gives an average of 1.76 per square meter, since a large part of the vessel is the basement and the engine room. The area of free circulation is very little and in tuna fishing there is a period of time when you do not fish, they only go after the spots early in the morning at sunrise and at the end of the day, they spend the rest of the day in which they are not fishing to cook, or to do the maintenance works that are necessary and that doing nothing for a while is much easier on a ship with 80 meters that had more space to ciculate, as opposed to one so reduced.
And what was the story you wanted to tell here?
PB: "The route of the big spots" is almost a sample of the type of fishing that is done in the Azores, Madeira and Green Cape, which deserves this visibility for its sustainability, in a world where there are places where intensive fishing is so devastating that it becomes frightening. I also paid tribute to an artisanal fishing that is beautiful, illustrates the struggle of a man with a tuna, a line and a hook, there are no sieges or drags, which is almost a cowardice. There was still a need to focus on problematic issues, the difficulties that fishermen are now going through, we think, or at least the scientific community believes that the lack of tuna that is felt in the Azores fishing, because there is a major crisis in this sector, is related to the Gulf of Guinea. The problem is that in this zone on the west coast of Africa are large artificial platforms being created to assimilate these big spots with the intention of accumulating fish that are not caught by fishhook as in Macaronesia, but by siege, where fishing is more massive. These platforms are strategically placed on the large "freeways" of the tuna, deep in the migration routes, are the currents of hot water that these fish can identify through the perception of the sea temperatures and it is believed that this is affecting the tuna fishing in the Azores. Therefore, there was a need to call the attention to this situation that is already affecting a number of families here in the archipelagos.
What are your next projects?
PB: There is a work that I am developing for NG, I can ot say what it is yet, but it will happen during this year. There is also a cycle of exhibitions with the images of Joana Princesa and tuna fishing that are already underway and I have a trip to Green Cape to do some photographic labs that are associated with the project on the "big spots route".
Was it important that you won the gazette prize?
PB: Of course, although I'm not much of awards. Incidentally, this was the first time I submitted an application for a contest, but it is always good to see your work recognized, especially on the national scene. In addition to the fact that the prize brings some visibility to other works, it is like an open door, with new windows of opportunities that arise to continue to be able to develop your projects and this is the most important part.
