Long Road #01.
Exploring Os Ancares.
Hello friends,
Every journey has a beginning, a first step, and after some time thinking about starting this project, today is the day when I begin to share with you what moves me, what motivates me and what happens to me while I develop my work as a photographer.
In this first letter I am going to share with you part of the journey I made last October 28th through the wonderful territory of the "Sierra de Os Ancares", one of the most beautiful natural spaces we have in Galicia, within the development of my long term project entitled "Adeus".
Sentido pésame. Diary Day Nº47.
It has just been a year since the beginning of this project, and it was in this territory that I decided to follow a path that has given me countless experiences. I return to it as if it were an ancient tradition that links me to the "Os Ancares" mountain range and allows me to share time with its wonderful people, who are historically the most isolated inhabitants of Galicia. Here, between the mountains, the natural border of the communities of Galicia, Castilla León and Asturias is formed, reaching in its highest areas almost two thousand metres above sea level in the coastal area.
The following video shows my ascent to the "Puerto de Ancares" on the 29th of October.
At the beginning of the project, I used to be the one who always independently introduced myself to the people I met along the way. I would talk to them and during our conversation I used to tell them about the object of my project in the hope of gaining their trust. Over time, experience has shown me that in order to achieve the depth I am looking for in these encounters, and to get people to open up to me and allow me to get to know their lives, the ideal is to have "bridging" people who can help me to break the ice. In this way, the barriers that generate the logical distrust towards someone they do not know and from whom common sense indicates that they should protect themselves, even more so in an ageing and depopulated rural territory where episodes of deception are a constant occurrence, disappear, leaving the way open for the opportunity to achieve a relationship of trust and mutual respect.
For this trip I had the help of Lucía, a native girl of this area, whom I contacted and from whom I received the best of help: accompanying me and introducing me to people in her immediate environment.
Journey to Cantorcia, to Hermosinda's childhood.
During the development of a job, there are people with whom you connect in a special way, people with whom for one reason or another you feel an immediate closeness in which you feel at ease, as if in them you recognise something that was already part of you. This has been the case with Hermosinda. She met her husband Óscar in the village of Cantorcia, where she lived, a territory she left, as was her custom, when they got married to live in what was her husband's family home. It was there, accompanied by her in-laws, that they formed their own family, in which every hand was a help and every mouth a necessity. It is in this house, where they still live today with one of their sons, that I met them. Despite the relative proximity between the two villages today, it must be remembered that this is a territory where roads have only existed for the last 30 years. When we chat, he tells me that in his youth any journey was counted in hours of walking along hard, narrow paths that were shared with the animals. The extremely cold climate most of the year, due to the altitude and the exposed terrain, made it necessary to be well equipped to face any weather adversity.
In the two days I spent with them, I had the opportunity to get to know them in depth, to talk on long walks and share coffees around the wood-burning cooker while they talked to me about their past, their present and a future to which they look with concern because of the loneliness and the illness suffered by their son Rubén, who lives with them. On the second day we organised an excursion by car to visit their home village of Cantorcia.
On my arrival at their home, the second day I visited them, Hermosinda told me that one day when she had time she would like to show me her village, "to travel to Cantorcia", the place where she was born and where they met. Time is what I have plenty of, Hermosinda," I replied, "and I think it's a wonderful idea, so let's go there. While I photographed Oscar remembering, staring out of a window, what life was like in the village when they were not almost the only inhabitants, Hermosinda took the opportunity to change her clothes, grab her keys and we immediately set off for her village.
The walk was as if I were accompanied by members of my own family. It was a real excursion into territory they had not visited for years, since the last occupant passed away and the old house was unsuccessfully put up for sale. When they got out of the car and stood in front of the door of that house, they were very excited. In that place they met more than sixty years ago and they still remember how, while still teenagers, they began a relationship in the midst of a life of hard and endless work, but surrounded by important people. The sad reality is that, today, they have no one left.
After acknowledging and showing me the house with affection and nostalgia, I sat down with Hermosinda in her old kitchen where I could listen calmly to her story. Life was very hard for her. When she was very young her father died and while her mother worked the land she stayed by his side in a small basket. They survived with two cows and hardly any shoes or clothes and the only "trinkets" she remembers was a piece of wheat bread that they occasionally got to share with her siblings.
The following video shows a part of our long conversation.
It is often said that "the stronger our roots are, the further our branches can reach" and experiencing moments like this are undoubtedly what fuels my desire to work on this project. In the two days we were together I still hadn't taken a single photograph of her. Normally, and although it gives me a feeling of a certain tension, I try to prolong the moment as much as possible to take a portrait. With Oscar it was different, when I saw him in front of that window, with the natural light hitting him directly in the eyes, I felt the need to take the picture at that precise moment. With Hermosinda it was more complicated. Sometimes, the more I am interested in a person, the more I respect their presence or the more of myself I recognise in them, the more difficult it is to take the photo.
After our conversation I asked her to go for a walk outside the house and there I took the portrait that accompanies this letter. Hermosinda represents, without a doubt, the most dignified female portrait I have taken so far for this project.
Before returning I asked her to write something in my field notebook. It is something I like to do to collect documentation to support the project. Although I told her it wasn't necessary when she confessed that she barely knew how to write her name, Hermosinda insisted on doing so, sat down in front of me and wrote me the following note:
With the last light of day we set off back to their home. As we left the village and passed the cemetery where their ancestors rest, they asked me to stop, they didn't usually go there much, so they were looking forward to stopping to visit and honour the memory of those with whom they shared their lives. I waited in the car for a while to allow them this intimate encounter and after a while I approached them. It was then that I immortalised that moment with a photograph.
Sentido Pésame is a project that, for me, among many other things, represents the reencounter with a culture of which I am part, but at the same time and in a deeper way, it represents the experience of contact with this type of people. The day before my departure, I went to say goodbye to Óscar, Hermosinda and Rubén - their son - and it was like saying goodbye to something that lives inside me, something that forms part of my life in such a profound way that it was almost tearful.
Thank you for being part of to this Newsletter and do not hesitate to share it. As in everything that begins there will be things to improve and new things to come. I hope to see you in the coming weeks.
For any questions or comments I leave you my email: info@vicentefraga.com
Best wishes from Pontevedra, Galicia. November 2022.
Beautiful story telling Vincent! The maps, the journal, the short clips, they are all so insightful and add character and depth to the work you are making (though I think your ability to captutre that intuitively in your photography already exists) but it is a lovely bonus for someone like me wantitng to know more.
I like how you think about your process when taking portraits and how you talk about finding people who act like bridges which helps you make this kind of deeply connected work about communities which are remote.
I very much look forward to the next journal entry!
All the best,
Matt