INTRODUCING BRUNO ZHU
I’m originally from Portugal, but I’ve been living in London since last August. It’s been a year now and I still feel misplaced, very lost geographically and the fact that the sun only seems to shine in late afternoon doesn’t help much. One good thing is that I’m actually leading a more healthy diet, because my parents call me fat all the time. I miss home and the bumpiness of its places. I’m eitghteen. I’ve been introduced to photography during high school. They taught us the basics film processing and how to build pin-holes. I was quite ignorant at the time. The magazines made me want to pursue it. I don’t know why I keep up with it. It’s both an extra arm and an eye and whenever the occasion comes, I know what I don’t want. Photographing became more than a game or a careless activity; it has become a regular exercise for the eye, especially for my own sense of aesthetics. Taking a photograph became something that I now analyse and think about, even though I’m not a pro and I don’t do it for a living. Finding that Photography’s instantaneous nature is not what it appears to be has been the most enjoyable ride I’ve ever taken. The downside is the money involved in it, but that’s too sad to mention. This picture was taken last summer right before I got in a plane to start a new life in another country. It was a summer of pure pleasure seeking for the sake of things to come. The picture is not more than a celebration of my youth and of those two special girls in it, Clara and Sara. Everytime I look at it I remember the harshness of a change that came afterwards, which saddens me a bit, but at the same time I remember the crazy laughing session that happened right after I showed them the picture and that’s still going on. I showed these four photographers (Ana Kras, Marija Knezevic, Margaret Durow, Kirill Kuletski) to a couple of friends a few days ago. There’s the sense of chambering a mood and people inhabiting the space that makes me coming back to them and try to squeeze myself through those windows. Ana Kras albums of her days inspire me to continue photographing; the way Marija Knezevic takes control of a moment fascinates me; Margaret Durow and the people she shows makes me believe in them; Kirill Kuletski sense of space is breathtaking. I think I could go on and on with more names, references, links, websites, zines, split-zines, anything where a tantalizing image lingers either from Photography’s own history or the nowadays’ global web of blogs and individuals; all of them have something I don’t have, a skill I don’t possess or a different eye I aspire to be and see.
