Ana Vieira De Castro: Human Camouflage and Time Transformation

Conceptual Photography by Ana Vieira De Castro

Ana Vieira de Castro is a young conceptual photographer based in  Fafe (Portugal). Born in 1995, she studied Visual Arts and Photography at Escola Superior Artística do Porto University. She graduated in 2017 and at the time she was studying, Ana started her career shooting music events and working on her portfolio. She already had some interesting group and solo exhibitions. Some of them were Guimarães Noc Noc and  Armazém da Alfândega “A cultura d’Imediato”, both based in Portugal. In 2016, the photographer went to a Portfolio Review in Milan, organized by Photo Vogue Festival.

The photographer main focus is a human body surrounded by natural or artificial materials. These photos are the part of the two well-known series – “Human Camouflage” and “Time Transformation“.

Project on a Human Body – Human Camouflage Series

Ana’s project called “Human Camouflage” represent the camouflaged human bodies sett on “humanized space”. The bodies are pictured on different backgrounds – prints, textures, and stuff –  all manufactured. The photographer idea was to show how the human body defines people’s everyday relationship with the things that shape our mind and soul and usually take us far away from ourselves. We are all surrounded and connected with the material stuff. Because of that, these bodies are without identity – or, maybe, with the identity that is in constant conflict with the materialistic. “The artificiality of the body positions that represents his struggle to camouflage and be a part of whatever he is surrounded by […],” said Ana. Ana’s pictures show us the bodies without faces, the bodies that try to be a part of the material world, but unsuccessfully. The position of the bodies and the choice of the materials confirm the photographer idea.

It’s about the deconstruction of ourselves and how we can be so lost in the middle of all comfort.

Time Transformation Series – the Magical Bond of the Body and Space

Ana Vieira de Castro’s conceptual photography emphasizes some of the most important things that intrigued modern civilization. One of them is the idea of time and constant changes of every part of our world. The project “Time Transformation” emphasizes how time influenced both physical or emotional sphere of the human life. With the series of photos, the photographer shows an “almost magical connection between body and space and the idea that when we die we transform ourselves into the earth and then we are born from what has consumed us before.”