I had a personal necessity by producing this essay. I had just moved to live abroad and the feelings of being lost and doubtful were too strong, fortunately strong enough to push me forward and look for people like me: foreigners fighting every day in a strange country to make their lives, even tolerating very particular jobs. Inspired also by a verse Thousand Ways of Living, which summarize my own life philosophy, that I think we always will have a escape to find the happiness, because in a world where live more than 7 billion people, obviously we’ll have thousand different ways of living, thousand ways to fill the three variables which compound our happiness – a personal conception based in the three pillars of love, money and healthy. Just embrace the changes, accept the challenges and difficulties of a new beginning.
The photos were shot in the intimacy of their homes and day-by-day life. They’ve opened their doors and told theirs histories, the differences between the life before and now, the obstacles, changes and goals. Not all of them were Brazilians, but they had something in common: a dream. Nobody accepts to change drastically by themselves without believe that change will worth it. We spent hours together and at some point I used to ask them to pretend I was not there, so that my clicks could have more natural aspects. At the end I always shot the key photo: a portrait, simple, black and white which overflow feelings, following the pattern of a natural light and shadow, very dramatic. From this idea has also born the project Close Up Saga.
Thousand Ways it’s just the first step of a long project, it’s the beginning of a series of portraits of lives which aims to expand empathy and the respect for different histories trying to break the judgment, showing that exist thousand ways of living and none is right or wrong, more or less honourable, just different. After all we are inside the same ship coursing through a collective objective: don’t sink halfway.
