PHOTO OF THE MONTH BY GUSTAVO MINAS

Photo of the month for January 2024 by Gustavo Minas, as voted by BME members.

Some words from Gustavo about the photo:

‘This photo was taken on January 8th of this year, the anniversary of the coup attacks on government, Congress and Supreme Court buildings in Brasília - our own version of the attacks on the Capitol. To mark the date, the government placed these constitution books in giant size in front of the buildings. It was a rather cloudy day, but I decided to take a bike ride around the Esplanada to see what was happening, and this was one of the photos I took.’

PHOTO OF THE MONTH BY GUSTAVO MINAS

For June 2023, 2 photos shared the first place for photo of the month, as voted by BME members. This is the second of the 2 photos, by Gustavo Minas.

Some words from Gustavo about the photo:

“I was alone in Mexico City coming back for a festival in Villa Hermosa, Tabasco. Many people had advised me about taking care with the streets at night, but they felt much safer than in Brazil, so I took the chance to wander after sunset and try some photos with artificial lights. This scene was very close to the apartment I was staying in. I just saw the couple under this mysterious light and tried my luck. I like the ambiguity of the resulting images and the fact we can only guess what they were up to.”

PHOTO OF THE MONTH BY GUSTAVO MINAS

Photo of the month for April 2023 by Gustavo Minas, as voted by BME members.

Some words from Gustavo about the photo:

“Of course Istanbul has always been on my wishlist, so I got very excited about the invitation from @istanbul_street_photo_festival to attend the festival, alongside my BME fellow Barry Talis. The day I took the photo I was teaching a private workshop, and the weather hadn’t been good the whole afternoon, so we were more chatting and having tea than shooting. Then early evening we got to Eminonu and spotted this scene. At first I thought it was a bit too obvious, but decided to give it a try anyway. I took 6 or 7 frames, but wasn’t very happy with them, until a gust of wind came and blew her dress, and I think this is what makes it. Danis, my student, took some good shots of the scene as well, but he had a wider lens on, so everything is in focus, and the woman eating corn is looking back at the couple.”

PHOTO OF THE MONTH BY GUSTAVO MINAS

Photo of the month for January 2022 by Gustavo Minas, as voted by BME members.

Some words from Gustavo about the photo:

“Long road trips make me bored, but lately, as I'm usually in the passenger's seat, I've been trying to photograph along the road to pass the time, including some elements of the car in the composition. Now and then I also fire the tiny flash which came with my camera, just to see how the pictures come out. This was the case here. I used a long exposure too, and I guess the light from the flash bounced in the mirror and hit Priscila's face. When I first posted it, some folks commented saying that it reminds them of David Lynch's Lost Highway, which is not a bad thing at all.”

PHOTO OF THE MONTH BY GUSTAVO MINAS

Photo of the month for August 2021 by Gustavo Minas, as voted by BME members.

Some words from Gustavo about the photo:

“During the summer it rains a lot in Brasilia, or the sky is generally cloudy, so I totally change my way of photographing. Instead of going out just to photograph, some days I just ride my bike and stop if something catches my attention. This day the rain was so heavy that I had to stop under a bus stop for a couple of hours, there was nothing else to do but watching people and photographing. My camera and I were totally wet, and at some point I got lucky, and a raindrop on my lens created this somehow ethereal image.”

PHOTO OF THE MONTH BY GUSTAVO MINAS

Photo of the month for May 2021 by Gustavo Minas, as voted by BME members.

Some words from Gustavo about the photo:

“I took this photo last year in São Paulo during the week I was recording my online course for Domestika, Introduction to Street Photography. It's not everyday I get paid to spend the whole day doing what I love most, so, as a semi-amateur, I always take a lot of pleasure from these assignments. This was an advertising for a pharmacy, if I remember well. I first took some wider shots, trying to use the image in a composition with the pedestrians around, but when I got closer to the car I realised that there was something uncanny about the image of the little girl reflected on the curved glass.”

PHOTO OF THE MONTH BY GUSTAVO MINAS

Photo of the month for March 2021 by Gustavo Minas, as voted by BME members.

Some words from Gustavo about the photo:

“Bus stops are the only spots in Brasilia where you can find enough people together to create a multilayered image, as is the case here. I really like the fact that they're made of glass, so I often stop by and try to shoot some reflections. I have tons of those. Apart from this aesthetic side, I think this photo is very representative of pandemic here: there was never a proper lockdown, many people kept going to work on public transportation, and of course the outcome is the health tragedy we're going through , with the average of 2,255 deaths per day in the whole country in the past week.”

PHOTO OF THE MONTH BY GUSTAVO MINAS

For July 2020, 3 photos shared the first place for photo of the month, as voted by BME members. This is the third of the 3 photos, by Gustavo Minas.

Some words from Gustavo about the photo:

‘‘This was one of the last pictures I made at the airport in Miami in December 2019, after attending the Miami Street Photography Festival. It's tricky even for me to know what's going on in it, but if I remember well, there were big painted murals in front and behind me, and the glass of the escalators was responsible for this kaleidoscope.’’

PHOTO OF THE MONTH BY GUSTAVO MINAS

For February 2020, 3 photos shared the first place for photo of the month, as voted by BME members. This is the third of the 3 photos, by Gustavo Minas

Some words from Gustavo about the photo:

“I was walking through one of the quiet areas of Brasilia, where not much usually happens, when I spotted that thin slice of light entering this restaurant. As I approached it I saw the girl sleeping, and her colleagues going on their business. I made 5 or 6 clicks, waiting until I had something else besides her. That apparent discussion between the couple made the difference for me when choosing it.”

PHOTO OF THE MONTH BY GUSTAVO MINAS

This month, 2 photos shared the first place for photo of the month, as voted by BME members. This is the first of the 2 photos, by Gustavo Minas.

Some words from Gustavo about the photo:

This was taken last May in Hamburg, Germany. I was there for my first solo show in Europe. The city is well known for its constant bad weather, and this day was no different. I was walking along the port when I noticed the ship reflected in the glass of a cafe, and when I got closer I noticed this old guy inside, looking like an old sailor who misses the sea.

PHOTO OF THE MONTH BY GUSTAVO MINAS

Photo of the month for October 2019 by Gustavo Minas, as voted by BME members.

Some words from Gustavo about the photo:

This was taken in the metro in Lisbon, in my last day in the city in May, late in the evening after some beers with some friends who live there. I love the colors here, but the scene and the feeling it suggests were the most appealing to me. We've all been there before, and I think photography sometimes can work as a kind of time machine too.

PHOTO OF THE MONTH BY GUSTAVO MINAS

In this month's vote for the best photograph we had a tie between Gustavo Minas and Don Hudson. Next week we will post the second winner.

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I work as a journalist and social media editor in Brasilia from 2pm to 10pm. This shifts make it possible for me to go out everyday to shoot when light is better, any time from 4PM to 7PM, depending on the season of the year. It feels great to leave my job to do something I love, even if for a short break. This image was made in one of those free hours. For me, it's a lot about its negative space (that huge block of red), something that Saul Leiter mastered and I think it's very hard to do well. It's also about how a tiny detail (that cigarrette in hand), that's roughly 1% of the frame, can be so important for an image. And it's also about how beautiful a woman in red smoking a cigarrette can look, even when we can't see much of her.

By Gustavo Minas