The River That Preferred to be an Ocean

2025

Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

THE RIVER THAT PREFERRED TO BE AN OCEAN is an analogue black-and-white series made in Rio de Janeiro.

A bay once mistaken for a river gives the city its name, and Rio still refuses to be solved. You can follow its lines on a map, but the city keeps opening outward, leaving you out on open water.

In a place famous for colour, I wanted to see what remains when pigment is taken away. The light is hard, almost theatrical, yet everyone stays entirely themselves.

Shot on 35mm, the photographic grain quickly mixes with sand and salt until you can no longer tell where the place ends and the picture begins.