Saudade (As flowers close up in the night)

Bio

Jon Cuadros is a photographer born in the United States in 1991 to Colombian émigrés. He creates intimate portraits of people and everyday life. He studied Writing and Literature at the University of Central Florida and has studied under photographers Anders Petersen and Todd Hido. Since 2015 he has lived and worked in Berlin. His work has been published in print and online, as well as exhibited across Europe. His debut photography book “Lichtquellen” was published by Pogo Books in 2018, and has since been featured in NY Art Book Fair, Les Rencontres d'Arles, and Photo Ireland (2019).

Project Statement/ Title: “Saudade (as flowers close up in the Night)"

Saudade (/saʊˈdɑːdə/), Portuguese, noun: “A bitter-sweet, existential yearning and hopefulness towards something over which one has no control.”

This personal documentary project is about the underlying longing and sadness that interconnects people, and the triumph of love. After Depression nearly cost me my life in 2018 I resolved to use my camera as a means to open myself complete with all my vulnerabilities to the world, trusting in due course people would share theirs with me.

I spend what resources I have traveling abroad in order to commiserate with locals in the rawest possible human form, with minimum assistance to overcome language and logistical barriers. I favor a tabula rasa approach, meaning often my only preparation is reading the odd novel to get a taste of where I’m going. In other words I am a wanderer. I’ve found one to three weeks is generally enough time for me to do a deep dive.

The subjects of my photos are real people I meet who often invite me to shoot them in the privacy of their own home, I never use models or a studio. I am an empathetic human first and photographer second, and in this way the image-making process is almost a by-product of establishing meaningful connections with my subjects, no matter how ephemeral they may be.

While photography, especially documentary photography, has traditionally focused on presenting truth, I reject this notion in my work entirely. I am interested in building a narrative that speaks to my understanding of the world. I open an empathetic, if not also bit brutal, eye towards the story those I photograph are dying to tell. Image by image I build a narrative that takes on love, loss, and hope - those existential afflictions that bind us.