In the mid 1960s, Walter Firmo’s investigations into the photographic language brought him into close proximity with, for example, works such as the works of Canadian photographer Jeff Wall, especially those which resort to drama and staging.
Taking as a direct reference classical paintings – for Firmo, those of Alberto da Veiga Guignard and Heitor of Prazeres; for Wall, those of Eugène Delacroix and Edouard Manet – many of the works of both photographers are constructed through portraiture and staging, consciously made by fusing staged and directed scenes with the frontrality and uniqueness of the figurative and direct documentation which is characteristic of the photographic process.
These images incorporate an expanded time that contrasts with the instantaneous and narrative fragmentation of the direct documentary record, abolishing the presence of the out-of-frame and the need to contextualize the image which is witness to the scene. They emphasize, in contrast, the quality of the eminently pictorial elements within the framing of the image, organized by the photographer and carefully arranged around a theatrical and preconceived narrative.
During this process, Firmo built many of his images by organizing and juxtaposing characters, backgrounds and objects in open-air or interior spaces, portrayed in specific configurations.
Scenes directed by him, always affectionate, intense and vibrant, produce iconic images such as those of Pixinguinha, Joao da Baiana and Clementina, taken for a report on samba in Rio published in Manchete in 1967. Or the portraits of his parents, accompanied by their grandchildren, based on Alberto da Veiga Guignard’s paintings Família do fuzileiro naval (Family of a Naval Marine) and Os noivos (The Bride and Groom).
Many of his portraits of less known or anonymous characters are also iconic, such as the black and white image of a fisherman in a rocking chair, bringing into the pictorial field a formal and creative proposition to be revealed and established in the confrontation and dialog between the work and the observer/spectator.
Role-play, uniqueness and the vernacular merge into the poetic language constructed by Firmo during his career.