A young man dives off a cliff, arms outstretched behind him. The image, snapped from a distance, gives him the outline and grants him the power of a superhero. A woman has artfully wrapped a colorful length of material around the top of her face; the way the photo is cropped, we can’t tell if she is completely topless or not. The cropping, colors, and her gorgeously lit skin almost blind the viewer to the photo’s full setting – a narrow, dirty passageway with a battered chicken coop leaning against a wall. These are just two of many striking images by Bahian photographer Guilherme Malaquias that can be found on his website and Instagram account.
A master of composition and color, Malaquias was recently the subject of a brief write-up on AfroPunk.com (whose coverage of black artists across the African Diaspora has been stellar this year), where writer Alexander Aplerku says of the photographer, “[He is] an architecture student based in Salvador, Bahia, who uses his camera to document the lives of people in his hometown; particularly in the urban areas of Bahia, where [he] volunteers his time painting houses and teaching in art workshops.”
There’s playfulness and even a sense of whimsy in many of Malaquias’ images, and it’s easy to see how both his vocation and his activism shape his photographic work. Be sure to check out his website and Instagram; the latter features mesmerizing short film clips.
His website is here, and Instagram is here.
All images by Guilherme Malaquias
