about us
My name is Jose Da Silva Pinto (Tonspi, for friends)... I was born in Lobito, a city in the South of Angola, the 7th of July 1959.

I started to walk very late due to laziness and because I was a very fat person, to speak too early because, according to my mother, I was, and still am, a good talker...

I've kept many good memories of childhood, of friends, tricks, dreams (almost none carried through), small (many) naughtiness, desires, loves, afternoons passed on beaches in the island of Luanda, climbing the wall of the Cinema Empire, enjoy the afternoon session without paying ticket.

In 1975 I left Africa, went to Portugal, and started living in Lisbon. Studied Biotechnology in Zurich and in the long Sunday afternoons, when the cold compelled me to stay at home, I started to enjoy story telling with images, because the written word, although I like very much to read, did not gave me the same truth that I try to share with my images.

Photography appeared in my life in 1980, when I started to pay attention to the art of Eduardo Gajeiro. Since then, and until today, I have been learning to see, and doing what I love most, that is, to see with eyes that observe, to count my simple stories of life with truth.

From 1997 to 2000, the passage through Asia, taught me to be patient, to learn, to wait for the moment, the smile, the look. I do not possess top photographic equipment, I do not give exaggerated importance to techniques nor good rules to photograph, and I did not study photography in any school. I've attended, as I once said, the little school of magical sky, of 1001 colours, the magical dusks, the wonder of seeing a new day arising, of the looks, of the expressions.

I photograph for passion, I photograph for devotion. I forget frequently to clean my lenses and normally I carry always with me, wherever I go, day or night, a photographic camera. I never won any prizes; this is the first time that somebody invites me to display, to show my work.

These photographs that I bring you today were taken on 2003 and 2004, in the many travels that I have the luck of doing.

Since 2000 that I'm living in Luanda, for stubbornness, immense Love for this land that saw me born, and I'll try to remain here.

In Angola, after 3 years working in an oil field I decided to grant myself a pause, and pledge me deep in photography, as apprentice of storyteller. We will see how it works... because I continue to believe in LOVE, in MANKIND, and in LIFE.

The Future... well, I'll keep writing it with flicks of blue, in the sky that I invent for myself, every day.

Translation: Sofia Quintas

http://www.fotolog.net/silvapinto