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Sunyata

Sunyata

Rafael Roncato
January 31, 2017
2 Comments

I appropriate the concept of emptiness to think a shooting mode by errancy, establishing relations between photography and the world. Like the act of plunging into a sea of uncertainty, the Sunyata book is an experience of emptiness bumping into issues such as impermanence, interdependence, besides the flow of forms, sensations and perceptions, where the "I" is only an artificial unity created by the mind. Sunyata (Sanskrit) is often translated as empty or, more precisely, emptiness. Emptiness is a characteristic of the phenomena: nothing has an independent existence, an essential identity. Everything integrated in life undresses an absolute identity, and is impermanent, interrelated and interdependent, so that nothing is totally self-sufficient or detached from the whole. All things are in a dynamic state of constant flux. What is emptiness but an infinite potency?

Video: https://youtu.be/97sa7d4ddMg



I never sought emptiness. We were presented unexpectedly, casually, in the midst of banality, emerging from my wanderings. Before our meeting, I sought to understand the apparent gesture that dared to repeat in certain images I've produced. They were new photographs, distinct and distant from my usual way of working. They stopped me and sounded cryptic - consequences of the need to walk and photograph adrift. At that moment, I did not get answers. The images seemed empty and yet they instigated the confrontation with a defiant look.

And then, amidst the squeezing and shakes of the bus, I came upon the notion of emptiness in a footnote. Just as, suddenly, we come upon our own reflection and are forced to look again at that strange fugitive image, an inexplicable force suspended me: Śūnyatā. Just as I hardly ever pay any attention to the external references of my readings, I stumbled bumpily between the lines of Eugen Herrigel's Zen in the Art of Archery. I did not know its meaning, but sonority swallowed me like a vortex; Sunyata, sunyata, sunyata. Like a mantra, the rhythmic babbling of the word became welcoming. Opened at random, I allowed this bump and went to meet him. It was my stop, I gave the signal and jumped into the void.


I usually shoot with digital cameras such as Nikon's D90 and D610, Fuji x100s and mobile with iPhone 5s. For Sunyata I shoot with all these cameras, except for one image took with an old 35mm Canon. For editing and post-production I use Adobe Lightroom, changing and adapting some exposure, highlights, shadows and balancing colors.

For this project where relations between images are connected and created, the sequence and editing are a crucial part of it. I've spent a couple of months editing and figuring out what's the best sequence to tell the story that was inside my head.






Overall, people liked the project. They found one of my most mature and delicate works, in which it has a narrative that is not obvious and makes us try to search for meaning in all images and their relationships.

This work led me to give a new face and perspective into my photography and ways of seeing. I matured as a photographer and also as a storyteller. I had difficulty understanding where I would get with this job; I have had the pleasure of practicing detachment, of trying to be clearer in my goals, as well as understanding the importance of our relationships with the world and people. It was a process of personal and professional maturation, and I am glad with all I've done.

While shooting, I get empty. When I get lost, I find myself. I trace my route in uncertain seas, with no charts or maps. With the camera slung over his shoulder, vacant without destination, abolishing the sensation of time. An indeterminate walk, adrift, under gusts of impulsive winds, through the archipelagos of emptiness. Without any intention, I turn to impracticable roads where it is possible to bump, maybe to run aground to talk to the people who are or know how to stop, forgetting that one must act. In recent years, walking and photographing has become a new way of working. To go is to photograph; Or is it the opposite? In the solid folds of the city are nomadic spaces in constant mutation, ceaseless transit, territories in continuous transformation - will they remain in the same place where I have found them, minutes, hours or days later? And such spaces of the city, apparently solid and sedentary, also follow in transit, in a delicate balance of reciprocal exchanges, errant. I walk on emptiness. I photograph as emptiness. I traverse the flow of an archipelago of sensations, meandering through the concrete in search of relations.

Rafael Roncato

Rafael Roncato (b.1989) is a Brazilian photographer and visual artist from São Paulo.

2 comments on “Sunyata”

  1. Fantastic read. I loved every bit of this article. Wonderful imagery as well, and not just in the photographs.

    1. Dear, Lee

      Thank you so much for your feedback. I'm glad that you liked it and somehow Sunyata touched you. If you want to see more about my work, please feel free and take a look at my website: http://www.rafaelroncato.com.br. Thank you, all the best. Rafael

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