Images from São Paulo is a collection of analogue photographs made during Laura’s first journey to South America. Encountering São Paulo as an outsider, she was struck by the city’s energy, and seemingly endless palette of colours. Yet, through black-and-white film, she sought to distil these impressions into a series of street photographs that focus on gesture, light, texture, and atmosphere.
Upon returning home, Laura revisited the images in the darkroom. Using digital negatives produced from the original film negatives, she created contact prints, engaging in a second encounter with the city and the memories attached to it. As each image gradually emerged in the developer, the process became an act of reflection, allowing me to reconsider my experience of São Paulo from a distance and through the material language of analogue photography.
The book brings together 20 images, hand bound using a traditional Japanese stab-binding technique. Through its sequencing and physical construction, Images from São Paulo reflects on photography as both a record of place and a means of revisiting memory.
