2 Projects | The Mountains | Cencellada
BY EDUARDO ALMEIDA
“The Gods Kingdom Up there, beyond the clouds, where the world of men reaches its limit, the mountain rips the sky.
Up there, where the path is lost in the rock, and the mist hides the edge of the cliff, the mind is clouded.
Do you hear it? Up here, the wind whips the men who see the meaning of their existence. Do you see it? Up here, the sun burns the eyes of those who wanted to see beyond the horizon.
“Woe to the one who found the border of God’s Kingdom up here and never wanted to return again!”
The Mountains
“What an immense greatness from which we get away! We, who believe we evolve as a species, however, refuse from our natural roots. My photographs are the result of a tireless and lonely search for the unknown and arise; from the need to show the intangible hidden behind each landscape.
It is that mysticism that once created gods and coined myths and legends about mountains, rivers, and lakes. It is that astonished gaze of the ancestral man, who could only love and fear that greatness that he could not explain but of which he undoubtedly was and felt a part.”
-Eduardo Almeida
Human beings have an irrepressible need to reach the impossible, climb to the top, and crown the highest peaks.
Our ancestors saw in the mountains, where the rock rips the sky, the limit between their world and the world of their gods. There was a vital mystery, hidden by mist and snow, waiting for those daring who would venture to try to reach it.
This mystery is what drives me to create this series, portraying the personality of these mountains that, in other times, coined myths and legends that were the cradle of gods and demons and marked the lives of those who at some point contemplated them and dreamed of reaching them. That is why I decided to approach this photographic series in a monochrome way, like images of a dream, this distilling their purest essence.
EDUARDO ALMEIDA
Eduardo Almeida was born on March 11, 1985, in the town of Zamora, northwest of Spain. The youngest son of a family dedicated to a family business, he lived his childhood in the outskirts of the small town of Benegiles, surrounded by nature, and he spent long hours playing in solitude, with very little contact with other children.
He was always a lonely boy, and perhaps this was what formed in him a rich imagination and a way of looking away from the influence of others.
At the age of sixteen, he began to work, helping in the family business, and it was not until a couple of years later, at eighteen, when he first took a camera in his hands, a gift from his mother. He began to photograph practically anything, led by his curiosity, but it was not until sometime later, at twenty-three, when he began to focus on landscape photography, particularly in black and white, with no purpose other than his enjoyment.
At twenty-eight years old, he changed his old digital camera to a medium format film camera: a Hasselblad 500C/M, and by that, he discovered the exciting world of black and white chemical photography and all the possibilities it offered.
It was a turning point that allowed him to change his vision completely. It did not take him a long time to complete all his medium format equipment and set up his own darkroom, as well as a framing studio, thus closing the circle from taking a photograph to the final presentation. Today, he is creating his first negatives in large format with a 4×5″ field camera, allowing him to work slower and more thoughtfully.
In 2015 Eduardo traveled to Norway to photograph the Troll Mountains. This would be his first photographic trip outside the Spanish borders. This same year he also started the construction of his darkroom, a space where he could develop film and print comfortably.
Between 2016 and 2019, he made several photographic trips outside of Spain, mainly to Portugal, Italy, and France, in addition to continuing to work in the Spanish territory.
In 2021 Eduardo began to present his work to several national and international photography awards and competitions, receiving several honorable mentions. This year, he also participated in several collective exhibitions in Barcelona, Girona, and Athens.
On June 25, 2022, after several months of working tirelessly in the laboratory, Eduardo managed to inaugurate the solo exhibition The Monochrome Landscape in Zamora, a permanent and constantly updated exhibition of his photographic work.
Cencellada
“The cold arrives mute to the Duero shore, soaking the air and stopping the time, like a veil that everything covers.
The cold becomes tangible, visible, like mist particles against the light; I can see it. I breathe in, inhale the air, and the smell of winter fills my chest.”
Cencellada is a totally intimate series focused on introspection.
The key elements common to all the photographs in this series are the same, creating a silent symphony of fog, frost, and silence. A peaceful gaze of a sleeping, frozen, silent landscape is sought through minimalist images.
The cold, represented by the frost, one of the series’ main protagonists, freezes the moment in time. Every element of the scene is covered in that white frost. The trees, already stripped of their leaves, appear naked, asleep, and frozen in the moment. This represents a cold feeling that invites us to pick ourselves up, take shelter, and slow down our gaze.
We also find the fog, which hides the landscape, masking it. It is like a veil that covers with mystery what lies beyond the immediate path.
The fog turns a cold and desolate landscape into a world full of secrets hidden in plain sight.
On the other hand, the water, present throughout the series, represents the dark background that is sometimes quietly hidden and that we do not see. It is like a mirror reflecting the world’s light, preventing you from seeing its depth under its calm waters.
Finally, an undeniable key element, not visible but represented, is silence. Each photograph represents a silent and sleeping landscape. Not a single element on stage elicits an idea of the slightest sound. This, along with all the above elements, turns each of the images of this series into an authentic crystal landscape.
