Portraits that tell stories and change lives
I have always been that guy who easily falls in love with things. I still remember when I got my first computer and was finally able to access internet from home. That moment, a world of possibilities had opened up for me and I could study more about things that interested me like programming, design, and photography.
From that time on, I started to develop a special passion for writing and photography, and sought to insert them in my everyday life. Then, this passion led me to study advertising in university and become an advertising copywriter. Later, it was the same passion that made me ask for resignation from my job to work with that I love at most: female portraits.
In 2014, after get in university, I had news that Claudia Regina would come to my city to do a workshop about Affective Direction. She was a photographer who inspired me a lot and it was through her website, “Dicas de Fotografia” or Photography Tips, that I could learn the technical part of this kind of art. So, when I signed up to her workshop, I confess I was not aware about the content she would discuss, but the possibility to talk in person with her, I liked it a lot.
A long time passed and I didn’t had the chance to apply what I had learned in that workshop, so I was almost giving up of photography. That was when I started a relationship with Rayanne, a woman who awakened in me the sensibility to see life in another perspective.
That time she was facing depression and before we start dating, she asked me if I really wanted go through that delicate situation with her. I was afraid, but very willing to try it, so I was honest with her and decided to enter into her universe.
If you ever had the chance to live with a person who has depression, you know all problems linked to this disease. That moment, I had to become a more comprehensive and sensitive person, opened to conversations and listenings, without judgments.
Because she didn’t want a conventional treatment with medication and psychological counseling, I became one of the people that she trusted at most and was comfortable to talk about her feelings.
During this time, while she was getting better, I was searching for ways to cheer her up. Photography was one of those, specifically portraits. So, when I started to portray her, I had already listened, felt and get involved into her universe. It was like she was inside of me and I was feeling her pains, desires and yearnings. Slowly, I was understanding what Claudia had told me, it was all about empathy.
Trying to develop even more my work with photography, I started my final project to conclude my course of Advertising, it was called “RETRATA-SE”. In a brief explanation, it’s basically a portray that represents and tells a history.
During this journey, I started to give more value to the moment I was with the model. I use the time I’m in her company to get know her better and what it goes through her mind, her emotional loads, dreams, desires and history. Everything that helps me to shape a proper composition to her reality.
To me, the most important thing in a portray it is the sensibility of a soul. I’m not too technical when I speak about photography and I like practicality to do what really matters, that it’s giving recognition to things.
When I bought my first Fuji and started to portray with it, I realized that my concern with the equipment decreased. Reducing the size of work tool increased my capability of connection with the other person’s reality. With this, I became more confident and could extend this feeling to my way of direct.
“My name is Davi Cavalcante, I’m a Brazilian photographer of female portraits, student of Advertising and Marketing, frustrated musician and a poet who lives to transform life in poetry.”
