honorable mention
João Coelho angola
title
Love and despair
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entry description
They all live on the edge of survival, salvaging what they can from piles of garbage that consumer society spews out every day onto a dry plain permanently covered by toxic fumes. Their despair is evident. They never know what tomorrow will be like, they don't know if they will have food to feed their children. Despite despair being part of their lives, they show remarkable resilience, where love is not an empty word and is able to pause time and lend great beauty to a desolate sceneryabout the photographer
I was born in Angola 56 years ago but the war of independence in that country forced my family to restart their life in Portugal, where I completed my law studies. After practicing law for a few years, I worked in banking and finance. In 2007, responding to a strong call from my homeland, I returned to Angola to work on auditing and consulting projects focused on social development. I have always had a great attraction for the arts and the passion for photography definitely emerged with the acquisition of my first camera when I was around 20 years old. Although I published several articles in Portuguese travel and leisure magazines, photography was dormant for long years due to the demands of my work. The return to Angola, with the daily coexistence with the sounds, smells, and colors of Africa, awakened in me an enormous desire to portray people and tell their stories, stories of survival, dignity, and also of an admirable resilience. Sensitivity to the human condition thus characterizes my work. More than presenting a mere photographic work with aesthetic beauty, my great objective as a photographer and a person is to transmit emotions, feelings, and to call attention to the inequalities and the strong asymmetries that still exist in today's worldback to gallery