Alfredo Cunha

Portugal | B. 1953

In 1970, he began his professional career in advertising and commercial photography; the following year, he made his debut as a photojournalist for the newspaper Notícias da Amadora. He collaborated with the newspapers O Século and O Século Ilustrado, with the magazine Vida Mundial, with the Agência Noticiosa Portuguesa - ANOP and with the agencies Notícias de Portugal and Lusa.
He was the official photographer for the presidents of the Republic, Ramalho Eanes and Mário Soares, and received thComenda da Ordem do Infante D. Henrique.
At Público newspaper, he was photo editor between 1989 and 1997, and joined the Edipresse group as a photographer and editor. In 2000, he started working for the weekly magazine Focus. In 2002, he collaborated with Ana Sousa Dias on the television program Por Outro Lado, on RTP2. Between 2003 and 2009, he was a photographer and editor at Jornal de Notícias. From 2010 to 2012, he was photographic director of Agência Global Imagens. He currently works as a freelancer and develops various editorial projects.
Highlights of his career include the series of photographs dedicated to the revolution of 25 April 1974, Portuguese decolonization in Angola, Mozambique, Guinea-Bissau, São Tomé and Príncipe, East Timor and Cape Verde, PREC (Ongoing Revolutionary Process, 1974-1975), the fall of Nicolae Ceausescu in Romania (1989) and the Iraq War (2003).
 

Photo by Clara Azevedo

ENTREVISTA

FOTOGRAFAR A VERDADE

Como nasceu a paixão pela fotografia?

Em 2015, ao explorar uma reserva da biosfera nacional, um lago, em apoio a um movimento de conservação da natureza, apercebi-me como o mundo natural é tão belo, majestoso e abundante. O meio aquático, a floresta e as pessoas, as comunidades locais, formam um ecossistema em harmonia, são elementos numa simbiose íntima.
Nesse momento, pensei que seria interessante registar e partilhar toda essa beleza. Isso inspirou-me a estudar fotografia.
Além disso, nasci e fui criado num país com uma longa história cheia de heróis, uma cultura singular. Pela fotografia, procuro também transmitir informação sobre o turismo cultural no Vietname. A intenção é passar a todos uma mensagem única sobre a cultura, a vida, as pessoas e a paisagem do meu país.

Pela experiência de fotógrafo, o que te comove mais?

O meu país saiu de uma guerra, da pobreza, e, passo a passo, está a desenvolver-se. O Estado tem feito muito para melhorar o nível de vida das pessoas, mas, como em qualquer sociedade, haverá sempre ricos e pobres. Já viajei para muitos lugares do meu país, e a vulnerabilidade nunca deixa de comover.
Numa viagem, comoveu-me a história de uma idosa que trabalhou arduamente para criar cinco filhos e tentar proporcionar-lhes uma vida melhor, um bom emprego. Ao invés, os filhos não podiam cuidar da mãe, alimentá-la, pelo que ela, já com uma idade avançada, ainda tinha de apanhar camarões e caranguejos em rios e lagos e cultivar arroz e milho para sobreviver.
Dei-lhe algum dinheiro, apesar de ter pouco no bolso para a minha longa viagem. Foi o correcto. Nos dias seguintes, dormi mal, sentia uma grande tristeza. E lembrei-me dos meus pais. Ainda hoje, ao partilhar esta memória, me emociono.

Há alguma informação sobre o teu trabalho que queiras partilhar?

[sorrisos] Tenho um longo projecto em curso, cumpri uns 70% do caminho. As fotografias seleccionadas no âmbito do IN COLORS PROJECT by Lumicroma fazem parte desse projecto, ao qual me dedico há mais de quatro anos. Intitula-se "Ancient craft of nomadic fishing in Vietnamese rivers and lakes".
Já o deveria ter terminado, mas a pandemia tornou-o realmente difícil de cumprir, em termos financeiros. É quase risível, mas a verdade é que, actualmente, debato-me com dificuldades financeiras para continuar os meus projectos...

CREDENCIAIS

Exposições Lumicroma

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IN COLORS PROJECT | REACT!

React! is a portrait of the human condition and the perception of the world, showing different speeds, multiple realities, encounters and inequalities, so many reactions.

The broadness ... Ler Mais
React! is a portrait of the human condition and the perception of the world, showing different speeds, multiple realities, encounters and inequalities, so many reactions.

The broadness to which the theme is open is represented in this set of 50 artworks by photographers from 22 nationalities. React! to what, from what perspective? The possibility of endless interpretations is mirrored in an exhibition in which the reaction is as much in the photographed "scene" itself as in the impression of the person who photographed it, and also, and always, in the eye of the person who appreciates the photograph.
In this realm, there is the image of time and place, of many places and many qualities of time. There is the beauty of moments, spaces, cultures and traditions. There is a whole scale of emotions. There is the poetry of landscapes and the destruction wrought by war. There is fantasy in improbable scenarios. There are global concerns, personal instances. Sometimes the weight of existence; sometimes the lightness of laughter in the face of death. 
There remains, still, the certainty of a kaleidoscopic world, in permanent change, so that stories repeat themselves. Because man repeats himself. The continuity of life is also maintained. It is in the faces of many. It is in the colors. It is in the light of black and white. It is in the instinct. In the will. In what is lost, in what is conquered. Ler Menos
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IN COLORS PROJECT | HOME

With HOME, the theme of the 2nd edition of IN COLORS PROJECT, we set photographers from all over the world a challenge made of delicate matter. We wanted everything from photography - the artistic and ... Ler Mais
With HOME, the theme of the 2nd edition of IN COLORS PROJECT, we set photographers from all over the world a challenge made of delicate matter. We wanted everything from photography - the artistic and emotional act, the conscious and political act, light and shadow. The result is an exhibition that manifests multiple realities in the same blood.

In 74 photographs, 32 authors from 14 nationalities give us the most poignant portrait of what we are, what we do and what we are failing at. Because HOME has smiles and exposed wounds. It shows a sense of belonging and an absurd lack of ground. It is the human cloak of a thousand patches to which we all belong.
This is our Home. And we can't close our eyes.

IN COLORS PROJECT - an initiative without borders by Lumicroma - reclaims the relevance of photography as a socio-cultural record and artistic intervention. Through the convergence of experiences, aesthetics and visions, it aims to trace, every year, the big picture of the times in which we live. Ler Menos
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AUSCHWITZ: TRACE(S) OF A LEGACY

Auschwitz: Trace(s) of a legacy is a project that uses photography as a means of creating a link between past, present and future.
To keep the memory alive appeals to reflection and to vigilanc ... Ler Mais
Auschwitz: Trace(s) of a legacy is a project that uses photography as a means of creating a link between past, present and future.
To keep the memory alive appeals to reflection and to vigilance and encourages the commitment of future generations, so that, through these, the voices of the survivors, which will soon no longer be heard, can echoe.
We know the history, we have seen the films and we have read the books. We have always been told that Auschwitz is the true symbol of Holocaust, since more than one million jews were murdered there. A factory of killing people! Gypsies, ho-mossexuals, Jehovah's Witnesses and political dissidents also suffered in this dark place.
We have read about the hideous experiments carried out by Mengele in Auschwitz. We have seen photographies of the survivors, of the corpses, of the crematoriums, of the abandoned personal belongings. We started our journey to Poland with the thought that we would be prepared to face the interpretative centre of the Holocaust and, through it, find the answer to our restlessness: how could this have been humanly possible?
During the journey, we revisited those with whom we had previously shared the feeling of the concentration camp. All the pages, testimonies and faces remained well alive in our memories.
We have arrived, the presence in Auschwitz overwhelms us!
No memory, read, studied, seen or heard can be compared to standing right there. In the deafening silence of that place, which carries within itself the imense loss of human sense, the question of Theodor Adorno gains strenght: How can poetry be possible after Auschwitz Ler Menos
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PARAÍSO DE COURA

Alfredo Cunha's eye, attentive and sharp, documents this magic, this spirit of brotherhood, this collective happiness. The joy of the audience and the euphoria of the bands, who never forget th ... Ler Mais

Alfredo Cunha's eye, attentive and sharp, documents this magic, this spirit of brotherhood, this collective happiness. The joy of the audience and the euphoria of the bands, who never forget that breathtaking human wall and the generous way they are received. It captures the sweetness, the serenity, the deepest peace, the shared love, the respect, the amazement, the unique energy of the Taboão river, contrasted with the exaltation, the apotheosis, the celebration and the joy, that sacred emotion that Almada Negreiros once said was "the most serious thing in life".
Year after year, we need the Paredes de Coura Festival to recharge the batteries of passion, to dispel the mediocrity of the grayest days, to cure the diseases of the sadness that makes us pale and to chase away the city carrion that burrows into our bones. To fill ourselves with beauty, euphoria and the deepest peace, in divine communion with nature. On pilgrimage, in a perpetual return to magic.

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IN COLORS PROJECT | JOY

This third edition of the In Colors Project, under the theme JOY, brings together 75 works by 56 authors from 22 countries, forming an emotional atlas that interrogates the ways in which joy is expres ... Ler Mais
This third edition of the In Colors Project, under the theme JOY, brings together 75 works by 56 authors from 22 countries, forming an emotional atlas that interrogates the ways in which joy is expressed in a world marked by geopolitical tensions and systemic crises.
Photography, as a device for representation and mediation, emerges as a territory for ideological, aesthetic, and poetic experimentation. The selected images map out visual strate- gies through which different cultures are encoded, ritualized, and transmitted. Encompassing a range of representational expressions – from collective celebration to intimate contemplation – each author presents a singular visual lexicon, revealing joy as a socio-anthropological and aesthetic praxis, while envisioning the creation of possible futures.
The curatorial approach is structured around the hypothesis that the photographic image constitutes a device for reconfiguring sensibility, for analyzing and interpreting reality, transfigured and appropriated into autonomous and individual realities, prompting us to question the conditions of possibility for pleasure, encounter, and transformation in contemporary societies.
Curated by Aníbal Lemos and Sandra Maria Teixeira

IN COLORS PROJECT – a borderless initiative by Lumicroma – reclaims the relevance of photography as a sociocultural record and artistic intervention. Through the convergence of experiences reflecting on the current world and through photographic creation, it aims to annually trace the grand image of the time in which we live. Ler Menos
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A PLATFORM FOR VALUING PHOTOGRAPHY AND PHOTOGRAPHERS.