Sebastián Liste
Juror’s Pick (Whitney Johnson), Daylight/CDS Photo Awards Project Prize
“For two years, Sebastián Liste has photographed the daily lives of over one hundred families who formed a community in an abandoned chocolate factory in Brazil. His long-term commitment to the project has revealed an intimate and complex story—one that captures not only the consequences of drug abuse and violence within the community but also the pleasure of birthday celebrations and evening samba dances.”—Whitney Johnson [picture editor, The New Yorker]
Here, Liste talks about the project with Duke documentary studies student Carly Field:
Can you describe situations in which you, as a photographer, have felt accepted into or rejected from particular places you wished to work?
Personally I think that most of the time the access to a particular place depends on you. There are always complicated situations, almost always related to institutions that block your access to photograph. But normally, when you’re photographing people it depends on you, on your human skills to manage different situations and to feel comfortable with the people you’re sharing your life with. For me the most important thing is about the intentions you have, the motivations and the honesty that move your work and your life.
How did you integrate yourself in Barreto and gain trust from its inhabitants so that they allowed you to document their everyday lives? How much time do you have to spend in a place with people to understand their way of life?
I think there is not a magic formula to be integrated into a place like Barreto. From the first day I arrived I felt a big connection with some of the families who lived there. I managed to document the lives of the people of this place not just to earn respect due to the photographs but because of a real motivation to live with them, learning about life and growing as a human being. It is not just a matter of how much time you spend in a place, but the intensity with which you live with the people there.
Do you get to know your subjects on a personal level?
For sure, I know some people from the Barreto community on a personal level. I have not had the same relationship with all members of the 129 families who formed the community, but certainly I stay good friends with some families that I’m still in contact with.
Were any of these images staged or recreated in any way, or were they scenes that you happened to come upon?
All the images of this work have been spontaneous. I was just capturing moments when I’ve been with people. I think I wouldn’t be a good studio photographer; I’m not good at telling people to pose for me. It is not my way to tell stories.
Why did you choose to photograph in black-and-white?
In this project I chose the black-and-white because of practical issues. I wanted to document the life of this place twenty-four hours a day, day and night, regardless of light quality. I wanted to focus on life rather than purely aesthetic issues. I’ve heard too many times from documentary photographers that they photographed just at certain hours of the day because the light is better, because the light is beautiful. Photographing in black-and-white allowed me to forget about the pretty light and focus on the life in the community.
Click here to read more about Sebastián Liste’s work.
Submissions are now being accepted for the 2012 Daylight Photo Awards, with an application deadline of May 15, 2012. For more information, click here.
CDS undergraduate student Carly Field conducted this interview as part of the “Multimedia Documentary” class in the fall of 2011.
