Title: “Heaven”
Everything started long before I was aware of the capricious ways of life. I like to think that it all started with my maternal grandfather, José Mouriz, who died when I was still a small child; far too early to allow me to really get to know him or enjoy his company. I discovered and possibly inherited his passion for photography through the many mementoes and objects kept by my mother and grandmother. As a child, I was already drawn to his little paper copies and his negatives, especially so to the ones made of thin sheets of glass. In my childhood games,
I would unknowingly fog his photographic paper when I took it out of the boxes and placed objects on it, as I derived so much pleasure from watching the shapes and shadows take form before my astonished gaze. A feeling of wonderment and excitement comparable to the one caused by the yearly visit of the circus to my childhood places.
However, I only purchased my first camera many years later, when I first started to work. I gradually taught myself, again unable to imagine, back then, how much photography would mean to me later in life.
Heaven is a tribute to my grandfather, because that is the place where people went, we were told as children, when they disappeared from our lives. It is also a tribute to the circus through Graciela, their trapeze artist, the sky was her workplace, and heaven is how she called her trapeze flying high under the circus Big Top.
Manuel Capón Mouriz
[1] Translator’s note: el cielo is used in Spanish to mean both ‘heaven’ and ‘the sky’.
Traslated by Marisa Capón
Gratefulness:
My heartfelt gratitude to Circo Raluy for such an unforgettable experience, your kind hospitality and your immense contribution to help the circus endure.
Year: 2013-2014 (edited)
Technique: Shot on 35mm film and 120 (6x6), this project’s current edition is made up of 33 photographs.
Project description:
Documentary photographic essay about life in a circus based on portraits and everyday life scenes. The photographs were taken between 1997 and 2000 and belong to my personal photographic archive, which I went back to edit when I took up photography again and while I was doing the Advanced Course in Documentary Photography at the Escuela Internacional Alcobendas PhotoEspaña (Pic.A) in 2014.
The full photo slideshow will soon be available:
Slides projector
