Silva+Cemin!

Intensifying Lives!

Guilherme Silva and Rodolfo Cemin are a photographic duo from Brazil, and one more proof that teams work it best. We love the energy in their work, their vibrant ideas and strange worlds. So will you if you read on.

KALTBLUT: You guys work as a team. What advantages and what rough spots does it bring?

Silva+Cemin: We have the same creative process and research and this is what makes it easier, we don’t disagree with the creation of the scene, we give opinions to each other. But in some ways, we have a different point of view when the image will be captured, so we always try to see how it looks before taking it.

KALTBLUT: How do you work? Do you plan your photos or are you just spontaneous? What’s your process?

Silva+Cemin: That depends. We think about a concept before we make a photoshoot, we plan some pictures or poses, but at the time, there’s always a new idea – or something just happens in a supermarket and we think “this is it!” then we take it. And now we are so excited with our new project which is coming soon and we are in love with that.

KALTBLUT: What does a day with Silva and Cemin look like?

Silva+Cemin: It starts with “it’s a sunny day”, then we pack our bags with all the stuff we plan for the shoot or what we think we’re gonna use on that. We put our clothes on (or off sometimes when we want to appear on the image), check our cameras and films. We walk a lot in the city to find some nice place, but you know, we are always inside some church with many people standing to us thinking “oh my god what’s happening here?”. After shooting we try to remember all the pics, then we eat a vegetarian sandwich at Subway and drink Sprite, we go home take more pictures, take a bath for sure, and then we go party with friends and drink and, you know, next day we might be waking up naked and someone else’s bathtub.

KALTBLUT: Some of your photos are quite surreal! Do your photos look anything like your dreams? Where do your images come from?

Silva+Cemin: Actually, we search some subject that comes to our minds as it hits not as a dream but as an idea to show a parallel universe. We keep on thinking about it then we talk and search and thinking more till we get a nice concept to build our images. It’s like writing a song before singing it. But there’s always the thought which is always in our minds: we want to express our feelings to intensify lives; we want to make things more grand than they are.

Interview by Amanda M. Jansson