Fernando Guerra in View Pictures

Fernando Guerra passa a ser representado pela principal agência de fotografia de arquitectura, a View Pictures, a partir de Dezembro de 2008.
Representando mais de 40 fotógrafos em todo o mundo, fornece as principais reportagens de fotografia de arquitectura para revistas como Architectural Review, ICON, Blueprint, entre outras.
Para os clientes da FG+SG é mais um veículo de divulgação dos seus projectos nacionais a nível mundial.
A edição de Novembro da newsletter da View inclui um breve texto de Fernando Guerra sobre a experiência de fotografar para Álvaro Siza.

“On Siza…

One of Siza’s projects that has affected me the most is the Anyang pavillion, 30km south of Seoul in South Korea.

When we travel to the other side of the world, we can’t postpone a session due to poor weather or insufficient conditions. We have to create the images with no excuses. Thus, during the summer of 2006, I went to Anyang to photograph the small pavilion built on an open square carved into the mountain, and I was greeted by a week of incessant rain. It was one of my first projects for the studio and I couldn’t nor wanted to make excuses for an incomplete or insufficient piece of work. Filled with anxiety, I did what I had to do: I took pictures…
And it was worth it: The rain became part of the session, providing an unusual atmosphere. The fog ended up hiding some of the less interesting buildings nearby, and the gushing water created cascades that I have not seen since during recent visits to the building. To complicate matters, that same week inside the pavilion, on the only day I had other people working on the project, I did not have my tripod with me, for various reasons. I had to improvise using an old picnic table I found close to the pavilion to support the camera and provide the stability I required. Some images had an exposure of 4 seconds, but the improvisation worked.

The photographs I took on those days were published all over the world, and in their own way helped Siza win several distinctions such as an award from Wallpaper* magazine in 2006 as the gallery of the year. My most published photograph is probably the one of the girl on the inside by the window which was the cover image for different magazines like Casabella or the Japanese, A+U, among many others. It went well. And it was worth it. It was the start of a collaboration that has turned into a friendship of which I am proud.

Long before pointing a lens at his work, I would buy magazines and books containing his projects and visited his buildings more with the curiosity of an architect than a photographer. To be able to share a close relationship with a master is an honour that one never completely becomes accustomed to, but which we easily forget when taking a stroll or sharing a meal, above all because Siza closes the distance with his natural manner. He’s the antithesis of an inaccessible media star.

Working with Siza today is above all like working with a client who surprises me each time I am confronted with one of his works. The attention to detail, his dedication to the project’s design is total, despite his 75 years. On a trip we took together to Japan this past September, his energy left me thinking that I was the one who was his age. When he is recognised on the streets of central Tokyo and stops to sign autographs for his admirers, one understands even more the dimensions of his work. He’s an example for all Portuguese architects, and one whose recognition continues outside of Portugal, now with the important gold medal from RIBA.

Practising architecture does not imply its publication. Neither is this Siza’s objective. He works because he’s an architect and architecture is within him. He expresses it and it emanates from him. It is up to us to visit and divulge it. In the public domain, the recognition of a building’s “exceptional” nature is often through photographs. This means that in order to reach a wider audience, the architect depends a great deal on who photographs it, and principally on the way it is photographed. With Siza, his ample spaces are always conditioned through absolute control of light. I only hope I can continue to do justice to this light with the same enchantment that I had when I studied architecture and used it as a reference point in my small projects.
Fernando Guerra

At present Fernando Guerra has photographed more than 40 of Álvaro Siza’s works and continues to photograph new works for the studio on a monthly basis. ”