The emotional centre
A boy fastens the belt of cowbells for the first time: he has heard that sound from the outside all his life, and now it is born from his own body — heavier and louder than he expected — as he learns to move.
The sequence
It reads like a book. Each photograph rests on the sound that was happening when it was made: come closer, with the sound on, and listen.
12 photographs
Who receives
Not yet known
I am looking for a boy or a girl putting on the cowbells for the first time, followed from the making of the mask to the Entrudo.
Each chapter follows one child closely, chosen with their family. The thread of the chapter is theirs: the learning, the day of the festival, and the everyday.
What I photograph
The making and the fitting of the masks, in the weeks before the festival, and then the Entrudo itself: the first caretos on small shoulders, the belt of cowbells fastened for the first time.
Three threads
- 01
The learning
The gesture not yet settled: the first time the body makes the sound, and someone older corrects it.
- 02
The performance
The day the tradition shows itself, and the child stops rehearsing and begins to be seen.
- 03
The everyday
School, the phone, the kitchen — where the tradition lives alongside everything else.
The recordings
What could be heard while the photographs were being made. The still image lives on the sound.
- 01AmbienceThe village before the festivalNot yet recorded
- 02AmbienceThe mask-maker's workshopNot yet recorded
- 03RhythmThe belt of cowbells in movementNot yet recorded
- 04ConversationA mask-maker explains to a boyNot yet recorded
The film
The film is made of living photographs: the camera does not move, and life moves inside it.
The ground
A village in the north-east of Trás-os-Montes, on the inland border that empties a little each year: schools with a single class, streets where the loudest sound, most days, is a tractor.
With the families
The children in this archive appear with the permission of their families and their communities, and only once there is trust. They may leave at any time. The photographs always go back home.