so many things to share. last night, as i was writing on my journal, i noticed i am facing myself with practical issues as well as “psychological” ones, and i don’t make it to understand and process them all at the same time. i’m a mess!

the practical issues concerning this project are basically two: money and the pre-production.

1. money
working analog in brazil – specially if you are out of sao paulo, which is my case – is expensive and difficult. one can’t find films to buy – i’m a fuji person but i had to switch to kodak, simply because i didn’t find any over here – and when one finds, it is hell expensive (+- 7 euro, 35 mm, 36, 400 ASA). plus: you have no good labs, with bad development and bad prints. i am sending my stuff to a laboratory in sao paulo, and the post fees will melt my money away. and then, since paying someone to scan my negatives just increases the costs, i am scanning everything myself (thanx, severo, for lending me your scanner), but the results are not the best. at all!

besides that, there are the travels’ costs. this week i am going to joao pessoa (123 km away from recife) and fortaleza (787 km away). so think about the flight tickets, food, transportation within the cities and accomodation… then i’m broke. fortunately some great friends bought some photos of mine, with no other intention than to help me hahaha and it saved me from bankruptcy while doing this homework.

2. pre-production
i am applying a HUGE amount of time searching for girls and approaching the possible characters. i receive and answer hundreds of emails per week, make hundreds of phone calls, set appointments, go to appointments, listen to the girls and invest money and time in coffees, taxis, bus tickets… and it hardly HARDLY almost never turn into photos.

now i am reconsidering my own working process. as i began, i decided the first dates would be without camera, so me and the person would just talk and get to know each other and just get used with the theme. but now i am seriously thinking that the first date will include also some photo-taking, because the second date almost never happens.

i see that these girls, after our first contact, might realize that this is not an easy subject to talk about and change their minds about being photographed. they simply disappear, without answering any of my emails or phone calls, and without telling me they changed their minds or anything.

after me reading and listening to their stories, getting involved and getting emotional along, and after trying to shake them up (which is not my duty, I KNOW, but i feel like doing it, since i have faced it and survived it myself), i can’t help but feel very frustrated to be left behind with no conclusion. maybe if i wouldn’t be so emotional while dealing with them, i wouldn’t feel like that. but that is a subject to another post, which i plan to write asap.

i am in brazil since more than 3 months and i have photographed only 5 girls – and considering i am leaving in 40 days, it is a very bad panorama…

but then again, how many people should i photograph? photographing just a few isn’t also a result? because it is a sign of something. but there is another thing: if i would WRITE an article about violence against women, i would have more than sufficient material (really, i have listened to more than 40 testimonials). but i decided to make a photography project, so i need PHOTOS and i really think 5 girls are not enough.

i’d be more than glad to listen to some opinions on whether i am being unpractical or not haha feel free to be rude at ivanova.ivanova@gmail.com