{"id":45815,"date":"2014-12-22T16:50:55","date_gmt":"2014-12-22T18:50:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/revistazum.com.br\/revista-zum-7\/assis-hortas-single-shot\/"},"modified":"2022-06-01T16:45:47","modified_gmt":"2022-06-01T19:45:47","slug":"assis-hortas-single-shot","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/revistazum.com.br\/en\/zum-magazine-7\/assis-hortas-single-shot\/","title":{"rendered":"Assis Horta’s Single Shot"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n\n
\"\"<\/a><\/td>\nThe nonagenarian photographer from Minas Gerais state immortalised the architectural heritage and the society of Diamantina. But his career got a new impulse in 1943, with the Labour Laws, promulgated by President Get\u00falio Vargas. When he made it compulsory for workers to have a work card with a photo, that was all that was needed to get the working class into the photographic studio. In the years that followed, Assis Horta photographed hundreds of people. ID photo or full length portrait, for many it was their first picture. Women, in general, dressed up for the camera. To unprepared guys, Horta offered clothes \u2013 such as the guy at the side, who borrowed a jacket missing a button.<\/strong><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

A Cigarra<\/em>, an illustrated fortnightly magazine published in S\u00e3o Paulo, a city starting to go through major urban change, published a short essay in its May 20, 1916 issue entitled \u201cO retrato: usos e fun\u00e7\u00f5es\u201d [the portrait: uses and functions]. Under the by-line of Lu\u00eds Carlos, who never appeared again, the text addressed a big issue of the time: the permanence of the photographic portrait, its function as a factual record.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe invention of photography betrays man\u2019s unspoken yearnings: vanity and immortality,\u201d the author wrote. The essay was reproduced in Antologia Brasil, 1890-1930: pensamento critico em fotografia <\/em>[Brazil anthology, 1890-1930: critical thinking in photography] (2013), by Ricardo Mendes. In the author\u2019s view, \u201can old picture always awakens […] a distant period that it refers back to as if it were a mute moan from the past […]. Despite the fading of the photograph, the expression of man\u2019s evolutionary moment fixed in time gains longevity, which is already some sort of immortality. And so, vanity is justified.\u201d<\/p>\n

Assis Horta, whose old friends still use his childhood nickname \u201cAssizinho\u201d [little Assis], did not read any of this. In fact, he was born two years later, in 1918, in the Diamantina of the miners and Juscelino Kubitschek; the land of the legendary slave, Chica da Silva, and of the future classic Minha vida de menina (My life as a girl)<\/em>, by Helena Morley.<\/p>\n

But both the illustrated magazines from the first decades of the 20th century and Assis Horta\u2019s lenses helped build a portrait of Brazil as it changed. With a big difference, however: A <\/em>Cigarra <\/em>and its counterparts published images depicting the status and social life of the elites, while the photographer from Diamantina gave a face, identity and photographic visibility to the working class. Thus freed from anonymity, they reveal the subject both as a class representative and as an individual, part of the visual history of Brazil.<\/p>\n

And, if that was not enough, in an artistically exciting way.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Luck knocks on the door<\/h4>\n

It is easy to recognize the Assis Horta of today on a sunny August Sunday, strolling amongst the habitu\u00e9s of the Pra\u00e7a da Liberdade, a republican landmark in Belo Horizonte. First the hat, without which he would feel naked, then a navy blue wool cardigan over a striped shirt, and an ancient tie pin, securing his burgundy, check tie. He grips his noble carved wooden cane \u2013 \u201ca satisfying job,\u201d says the owner.<\/p>\n

Observed from a distance, he could be a typical gentleman of yore who, at the age of 96, is still up to a family stroll. Just ask him something that interests him, however, and Mr Assis, as he is called by everyone except his intimate friends, reveals his youthful curiosity about the new, showing that he is well-informed about the present and still has an excellent memory of his past.<\/p>\n

The surest way to get him to tell stories in his mischievous way is to ask about his family. Not even photography, something which shaped his life and has secured him a permanent place in national culture, can get him as talkative as the memory of Maria, the companion he shared his life with for 71 years.<\/p>\n

Until his wife\u2019s death last year, the couple went through life hand in hand \u2013 even at home. The names of their ten children were selected especially so that their initials formed the acrostic maria assis. As they were born, they were baptized Marluce, Assis, Rosil\u00e9ia, Isnard, Agla\u00e9, Argel, S\u00e9rgio, S\u00edlvia, Izabel and S\u00e1vio. \u201cBut I never took a portrait of Maria when she was pregnant,\u201d boasts the husband photographer, who appreciates modesty. \u201cI\u2019ve never taken photos of naked women. Not even at the Moulin Rouge in Paris \u2013 indeed, I felt ill when a couple I was travelling with asked me to photograph there.\u201d<\/p>\n

After losing his father at the age of five, Assizinho lived at the Grand Hotel on Rua da Quitanda, which was managed by his mother, until he married Maria, the \u201cfirst girlfriend I spoke to.\u201d He began doing small jobs at the age of nine without completing primary school \u2013 nothing unusual in the Diamantina of the 1930s, where many of the 10 to 18-year-old boys would work in trade, agriculture, livestock, and the mining industry or in factories.<\/p>\n

The Grand Hotel hosted all sorts of guests, from the owners of the region\u2019s diamond mines on the lookout for more manpower, to local people. Assizinho was lucky \u2013 when he was still a teenager, his mother encouraged him to get to know the lawyer, journalist and writer Rodrigo Melo Franco de Andrade, who was looking for someone with notions of photography to help him make a photographic survey of Diamantina.<\/p>\n

Known around town as \u201cDr\u201d Rodrigo, the founder and president for three decades of the Brazilian Artistic and Historical Heritage Bureau (SPHAN), created in 1937, had a project in mind. Only 20 years older than Assizinho and the father of the future filmmaker Joaquim Pedro de Andrade, he wanted to repeat in Diamantina the feat that Ouro Preto had managed \u2013 it had been designated a \u201cNational Monument\u201d four years earlier. He succeeded: the Diamantina historical centre was listed as a National Heritage Site in 1938.<\/p>\n

For this to happen, it was necessary to map every alley, house, business, church, and public building in the town and put together a collection of images to support the process. Assis Horta proved himself well-suited to the task, although his experience to date in photography was anchored in experimentation and curiosity, self-teaching and sensitivity, observation and zeal. He avoided all academic, school and technical training. He started as a photographer when he was only 14, helping Celso Tavares Werneck Machado, a businessman, builder and local studio owner. It was in 1936, when he became 18, that Assizinho had the audacity to buy the studio where he was working as an apprentice, and renamed the old Werneck Studio to Photo Assis \u2013 Materiaes Photogr\u00e1ficos das Principais Marcas e Cinematogr\u00e1ficos para Amadores e Collegios [Assis Photo \u2013 top brands in photographic and cinematographic materials for amateurs and schools]. Even though he was juggling two jobs \u2013 his job at SPAHN and his studio work \u2013 he started to travel frequently to Rio de Janeiro by train to purchase supplies and equipment that were scarce in Diamantina. He readily remembers the business address where he became a frequent customer: Rua Dom Geraldo, 42, in the centre of the city. He made the most of these escapades to walk from Pra\u00e7a Mau\u00e1 to the vicinity of the St. Benedict monastery.<\/p>\n

He returned from one of these expeditions with a wooden camera engraved with the name \u201cMarc Ferrez, 88, Rua S\u00e3o Jos\u00e9, Rio de Janeiro.\u201d On another trip, he brought back the Annuaire General de Photographie <\/em>of 1899. Sensitive and intuitive, he made the best possible use of the textbooks and materials that were sent to him by suppliers in Rio, which was still Brazil\u2019s capital.<\/p>\n

However, in those early days of Assis Photo, people did not discuss the work of Ferrez, nor Milit\u00e3o Augusto de Azevedo, or Augusto Malta. The most revered name in portraiture in Diamantina was Francisco Augusto Alkmin, Chichico (1886-1978), from an earlier generation than Assis. Son of landowners and brother of Jos\u00e9 Maria Alkmin, Minister of Finance for President Juscelino Kubitschek and vice-president for Marshal Castello Branco, Chichico was the town\u2019s pioneer of studio photography and the first visual chronicler of Diamantina in the early 20th century . His extensive output of about 5,000 glass negatives is a unique record of the cultural, political and social life of the time, and the town\u2019s architecture, religion and customs.<\/p>\n

Chichico Alkmin\u2019s photographic eye, fed mainly on the French school of painters and portraitists of the 19th century, eventually produced a rich and acclaimed \u201chuman and urban landscapes\u201d collection, which was the title of the exhibition held last year at Memorial Minas Gerais Vale.<\/p>\n

It was up to self-taught Assis, with his first studio on the corner of Rua do Bonfim and Rua do Contrato, to pursue his own path and remove himself from the shadow of the revered Chichico. He started with the basics, looking for his clients in social groups that were unfamiliar with the experience of having their portrait taken. Thanks to the foreigners \u2013 the gringos \u2013 passing through Grande Hotel, who enjoyed hearing Assizinho\u2019s amusing stories, he was commissioned to document the work of extracting diamonds and make photographic records of famous stones.<\/p>\n

He became friends with a couple of black miners who lived in the Palha neighbourhood in the outskirts of Diamantina. They were such close friends that they gave Assizinho the gold from which his wedding rings were made. Many decades later, an enlarged photo of Dimas, one of the miner\u2019s sons, was displayed in the town\u2019s Diamond Museum as part of the Diamantina 360<\/em>o <\/em>\u2013 Sob o olhar de Assis Horta <\/em>[Diamantina 360o \u2013 under the gaze of Assis Horta] exhibition. The nonagenarian Mr Assis was there to witness the dismay of the equally old Dimas when recognising himself in a photo taken 70 years before.<\/p>\n

Another money-making opportunity fell into the photographer\u2019s lap in 1941, with World War ii in full swing. He was asked by the Commander of the 3rd Battalion of the Minas Gerais Military Police, stationed in the region since 1890, to take portraits of a hundred of his soldiers. Front and profile. \u201cThe military police paid well,\u201d he recalls, mischievously.<\/p>\n

At that point in his life, Assis Horta had already found a way to overcome his early departure from school. According to his son Isnard, \u201cmy father has developed his own strategy to read and write.\u201d Isnard is number 4 of 10 offspring and the only one allowed to see the enormous collection stored in the basement of Assis Horta\u2019s current home in Belo Horizonte. Engineer and urban planner, Isnard admires his father\u2019s approach to reading. \u201cHe reads in his own way, but he reads, encrypts and decrypts, taking notes on the book itself,\u201d he says. \u201cWhen the subject interests him a lot, as with writing and research about Diamantina, he will make additional notes. On the margin of a book with information about a town character, for example, he adds: \u2018I have many pictures of him and his children\u2019 or \u2018I have an old photo of his house.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

Minha vida de menina<\/em>, by Helena Morley, a Brazilian of English descent (baptized Alice Caldeira Brant), describes life in Diamantina at the turn of the century. It was one of the books that marked Mr Assis soon after is was first published in 1942. One of the greatest satisfactions of his long life punctuated by joy is having made the winning bid at an auction for a silver thread bag that once belonged to the writer. The accessory, with the name \u201cAlice\u201d engraved on the lining, is carefully kept to this day by the proud owner in his safe.<\/p>\n

\"duplas01_1500\"<\/a>

Large glass plates show details such as the thread and needle used to keep the girl\u2019s neckline a little more modest. To display the ring, the man asked for a chair with arms.<\/p><\/div>\n

<\/h4>\n

The face of the worker<\/h4>\n

Assis Horta was only 25 years old and barely a year married when a decree dated May 1, 1943 \u2013 122 years of Independence and 55 years of the Republic \u2013 signed by the then President Get\u00falio Vargas, revolutionised labour legislation in Brazil. Article 1 of the historically significant decree starts: \u201cThe Consolidation of Labour Laws [CLT] is hereby approved. The ordinance that accompanies this decree sets out the changes introduced by the current legislation.\u201d The new set of labour laws, the individual work card and social security system were to become mandatory for the exercise of any employment, including rural and even temporary work. The same rule went into effect for those exercising autonomous paid professional activity. And, according to Article 16, the new individual work card must include, besides a worker number, serial number and date of issue, a photograph of the bearer, \u201cstating the date on which it was taken.\u201d<\/p>\n

For citizen Assizinho, nothing changed, since he had had a work card since he was 17. For the professional photographer Assis Horta, however, the owner of the renowned Photo Studio now located at a new address, the Vargas decree was decisive: it enabled his career to move up a notch and reveal the historical-documentary dimension of his work.<\/p>\n

At the request of a brother-in-law who ran a spinning and fabric factory in Biribiri, on the outskirts of Diamantina, Assis Horta visited the factory a few times. He was commissioned to photograph the c. 300 workers employed there for their new work cards. It was quite a task. Built in 1876 by Bishop Dom Jo\u00e3o Fel\u00edcio dos Santos to provide jobs for former slaves, the wives of farmers and workers, and orphans from the Nossa Senhora das Dores School, the Biribiri factory also provided accommodation for female workers. A year before, incidentally, Assis Horta and Maria had spent their honeymoon in one of the 30 homes built next to the factory. (As a village, Biribiri came to house 1,500 residents at the height of industrial production in the mid-20th century. There was a school for the children of employees, lodgings for single workers, a grocery store and even a dental clinic. Today, the 30 houses and everything else have been deactivated and placed into the trust of the Minas Gerais Institute of Historical and Cultural Heritage. Situated in the midst of an idyllic landscape, the site has found a new vocation as a setting for film, TV and soap opera directors in search of bucolic locations.)<\/p>\n

The first serial portrait session at the Factory began exactly 60 days after the new labour laws were introduced. Assis Horta started work just before lunch and continued his toil after the meal break. He sought to interfere as little as possible in the routine of the establishment.<\/p>\n

He arrived with his camera \u2013 which is still his sweetheart \u2013, a Compur bellows with an original Voigtl\u00e4nder Braunschweig Heliar 1:45f lens, a tripod and a light reflector. The format of his choice was always 9 x 12 cm. He talked little with the ladies he portrayed. He just showed them to the only chair in the room, and asked them to hold a sign with the date, a requirement of the labour law, and asked for their names. There was no need, as they would be completed by the work card issuing office, but still he would scribble their names on the back of each card as part of his methodical cataloguing of his valuable professional file.<\/p>\n

Biribiri took him about 4 days of work and opened the doors to other textile factories such as Cia. Industrial S\u00e3o Roberto, with a mixed labour force, wanting to follow the new decree to the T. \u201cIt was great for me, financially,\u201d he recalls with juvenile satisfaction. He charged three cruzeiros <\/em>per 3 \u00d7 4 or postcard size photo. He would arrange his bellows camera on a tripod, set up the reflector and only worked with natural light, with a slow exposure. It was one click per photo \u2013 in fact, he considers it normal even today to have always used just one click per photo.<\/p>\n

Have you ever been disappointed when you see the glass plate revealed? \u201cNever. Either it worked or it didn\u2019t. But it always worked,\u201d he assures, changing his story a little. He believes he has never burned a photo or needed to throw any in the trash. But he could not tolerate a picture out of true, \u201cso all my cameras had bubble levels.\u201d<\/p>\n

For many of the female textile workers who dressed up, all serious, committed and somewhat tense sitting in the chair placed in front of Assis Horta, the session may have been intimidating. \u201cThe girls prepared as best they could,\u201d recalls the portraitist. \u201cThey arranged their hair and, although they were at work, took special care for the occasion.\u201d Guilherme Horta (the surname is coincidental), researcher and curator of the special Assis Horta exhibition Assis Horta: a democratiza\u00e7\u00e3o do retrato fotogr\u00e1fico <\/em>[the democratization of the photographic portrait], held at the Planalto Palace in celebration of 70 years of the new labour laws, declared his solidarity with the presumed stress of workers. \u201cEven I, dammit, when I got my work card, made sure to put on a suit and tie. And look \u2013 I belonged to the counterculture, a rocker, I was an early 80s rebel,\u201d he admits today, aged 48. He is also a teacher, multifaceted artist and studio owner who printed the exhibition images.<\/p>\n

In contrast, when workers finally had their 3 \u00d7 4 pictures in their hands, and more, could actually take the paper copy to show to whomever they wanted, the impact must have been memorable. For many of those women, and men too, it was the first picture they had ever had taken. And it was permanent, no longer just their reflected image in a mirrored surface.<\/p>\n

\"duplas02-1500\"<\/a>

Every locality has its local down-and-out, an aimless and harmless figure known to all. This one in Diamantina wanted to have his picture taken, but refused to borrow the suit<\/p><\/div>\n

The photographic studio<\/h4>\n

Although photography had been pioneered in Europe more than a century before, and despite major photography studios having already been part of the Brazilian cultural scene for decades, the labour law requirement for a dated photo triggered in the urban workers in the region the taste, desire and competitive urge for social photography.<\/p>\n

A pioneer in capturing the individual image of a class hitherto almost invisible, such as the factory workers in the Diamantina region, Assis Horta gave them a visual identity and in doing so provided a valuable tool for scholars of Brazilian social history. For the portrayed, it was a great treat. Although the 3 \u00d7 4 was intended for mere professional records, Assis Horta photographed each subject reverently and diligently, taking great care with the lighting.<\/p>\n

The result: a good part of this chance clientele wanted more and started to show up for a new session. But this time in the master\u2019s studio. They came in style, either alone or accompanied by spouses, children, friends. Anticipating the inevitable demand for a greater variety of portraits, Assis Horta took some steps to address this eager new clientele.<\/p>\n

Right in the studio\u2019s shop window, in view of passers-by, he displayed samples in various sizes \u2013 from mere 3 \u00d7 4 prints to imposing 50 x 60 cm copies. And inside the studio he established a basic men\u2019s wardrobe for free use of customers who came in unprepared \u2013 a shirt, jacket, hats, neckties and assorted pocket handkerchiefs. Women rarely needed help \u2013 they already came with the necessary gracefulness. A broad cloth panel, painted by three local artists, served as the only backdrop. A nearby portable mirror was available in the case of doubt. As usual, Assis Horta only worked with natural light and a reflector.<\/p>\n

Every session began with the same question: \u201cHow do you, sir, or you, madam, want your photo taken?\u201d It was up to each person to decide whether they preferred to remain standing, sitting or posing. The photographer would only interfere in the scene to correct any imperfect collar, creases or adjust the composition. As always, he shot one click per photo \u2013 even if a fly landed on the sleeve of the white jacket of a client, spoiling the shot, or when the shoe of a child fell off at the crucial moment.<\/p>\n

Seventy years after those sessions in the studio, Assis Horta still has an acute memory for many of those he portrayed. When a young lady wore a severe dark suit and shoes more suitable to a man, he offered to place a bright natural flower in her lapel. The introverted client was so delighted with the result seen in the mirror that she took the flower home. And then a customer chose to sit on an armchair to be able to show off the ring on his little finger, considering it indispensable to the photo. Mr Assis remembers: \u201cThe problem was not the ring, it was the six-button jacket that constricted him. Double-breasted jacket? Four buttons only,\u201d he teaches, disconsolate.<\/p>\n

To the physical trainer who wished to show off his muscles, the photographer suggested he take his shirt off. And to a young lady with a drooping jaw, the unjust work of nature, he suggested she held her hand to her face to support it \u2013 this photo eventually resulted in the most expressive portrait of the series. Another female figure depicted from an oblique angle confusingly evokes Guignard\u2019s painting Menina <\/em>[girl].<\/p>\n

In general, everyone he portrayed at Assis Photo maintained a serious posture. Not even the children would smile. \u201cThey took the studio session very seriously,\u201d explains Assis Horta. With the small exception of a husband who asked him to show his gold tooth in the picture and so risked a half smile.<\/p>\n

In their own way, the many Brazilians who passed in front of the lens of Assis Horta eventually gave reason to a comment made by MASP’s (S\u00e3o Paulo Museum of Art) critic and curator Jos\u00e9 Teixeira Coelho, during the exhibition Olhar e ser visto <\/em>[see and be seen], four years ago: \u201cThe picture both surrenders to the viewer\u2019s gaze and looks carefully back.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"02\"<\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The big tour<\/h4>\n

Once established in his profession, Assis Horta embarked on an adventurous threemonth trip to Europe in 1954, invited by two other couples, friends from Diamantina, who, being wealthy, paid for the whole enterprise. Lacking social ease and cosmopolitanism, the four feared travelling in foreign lands without the company of a more resourceful friend \u2013 Assizinho, of course. And it was with the blessing of his wife, Maria, who had a bunch of offspring to take care of in Diamantina, that the five boarded the liner Augustus from the Rio de Janeiro quayside \u2013 one of nearly a thousand passenger ships that made the Europe-Brazil crossing at the time. They crossed the Atlantic and landed two weeks later at the port of Genoa.<\/p>\n

Assis Horta has kept his passport in a \u201cpersonal box\u201d. He seldom shows people the entry visas to Italy, Switzerland, Germany, France, Spain, Portugal, Belgium, England, Austria, and the Netherlands. Quite a trip for first-timers, but everything went smoothly. While he could not speak any of the languages useful in those parts, Assizinho made himself understood when it came to the basics: he managed to hire a Mercedes, and in it they toured the Old World. Above all, he managed to find the Rolleiflex factory in Berlin and bought everything they had to offer, including lens filters, varied tripod heads and even a panoramic lens. He still keeps the receipt proving such extravagance. He never failed to post all of the 74 letters he wrote to Maria, wherever he found himself. Today, when recounting the adventure, he only complains about a banana he bought in the Netherlands: \u201cThe most expensive I\u2019ve ever eaten.\u201d<\/p>\n

On his return to Diamantina, he started to cherish his brand new Rolleiflex like a friend. It was at this time that he took one his few self-portraits \u2013 he poses in profile with the Rolleiflex at waist level, ready to shoot.<\/p>\n

Also from this time is a remarkable 360-degree panoramic photo Assis Horta managed to shoot from the top of one of Diamantina\u2019s most popular churches, the Capela Imperial do Amparo. To achieve the desired result, the photographer waited for a day of clear skies and took the picture at noon, to avoid shadows and clouds.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy father took advantage of the many church rebuilding operations and positioned his camera on the scaffolding, mounted around the weathercock that tops the tower,\u201d says Isnard. The succession of plates shot with the panoramic head, in rotary movement, resulted in a breathtaking image. A copy of this monumental panoramic image, measuring 6 meters, can be seen in the local Museu do Diamante [Diamond Museum].<\/p>\n

\"03\"<\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

A basement of stories<\/h4>\n

Adding to his reputation as the quasi official portraitist of the town, his long and celebrated role as a public servant working for the third district of SPHAN and his stubborn dedication to the preservation of the listed heritage buildings he appreciated, it was inevitable: Mr Assis was bound to be called in to solve unusual problems. As the only Diamantina resident who knew how to operate an X-ray machine, he answered those requests and developed the clinical images at home. And he did not fail to respond to the calls from local dentists who needed a picture of a patient\u2019s mouth \u2013 with top quality development guaranteed.<\/p>\n

The family\u2019s move to Belo Horizonte in 1967, leaving memories, feelings, and an established work routine behind in Diamantina, was not easy. It started with the dismantling, transportation and installation of Assis Horta\u2019s photographic equipment in its new habitat and the collection \u2013 the result of decades of work and development \u2013 without which he would feel orphaned. One of the complicating factors has yet to be resolved: neither his children nor the researcher Guilherme Horta, or the photographer himself, know for sure the true extent of the complete archive. The number of unprocessed glass plates alone may vary from 20 to 50 thousand. Could there be more? To the good fortune of future historians and curators is the fact that Assis Horta acquired the habit of cataloguing and recording everything from his days as an official photographic register in Diamantina. And he was accustomed to keeping every negative in individual envelopes with a note of date, location and identification of what was photographed.<\/p>\n

The move to the Alto da Barroca neighbourhood demanded quite an adaptation. Jealous of his collection, Mr Assis took over the basement of the house at Rua Rio Negro and installed there all his photographic production and work material \u2013 forbidding access to third parties. Except for his son Isnard and one or two invited guests, nobody is allowed to descend the 13 steps that lead to the valuable den. His own children respect the rule, through their admiration for the patriarch.<\/p>\n

Invited to consult the collection to prepare for the exhibition that gave life to the concrete of the Pal\u00e1cio do Planalto, the curator Guilherme Horta marvelled at the existence of a complete darkroom, with tubs, enlargers and developing tanks. \u201cIt\u2019s surreal, and impeccable,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

Nobody is allowed to touch Assis Horta\u2019s cameras, of course. Only he may clean them. Currently, the collection consists of a dozen old cameras, plus a variety of post-Rolleiflex cameras. Clockwork 16mm cameras and super- 8 camcorders also abound. There are also half a dozen box cameras, which Assis Horta used to rent by the day at the time of Assis Photo in Diamantina. But apart from the unbeatable folding Compur bellows camera, his most excited affection is for the \u201cMarc Ferrez\u201d with its own set of lenses fixed in interchangeable wooden bases, purchased in Rio. \u201cBeautiful,\u201d exclaims the owner, displaying it to this reporter.<\/p>\n

Isnard and his father established a strictly followed modus operandi <\/em>to process the work of the photographer. \u201cHe takes the negative out of the boxes, separates them by themes in individual envelopes and notes any relevant information,\u201d says Isnard. \u201cI take each photo he releases, classify it and transfer it onto the computer with its full name.\u201d So far, about 5,000 photographs have been catalogued, and only a few hundred negatives scanned, a tiny part of the collection.<\/p>\n

Aged 96, Assis Horta also descends the 13 steps to the basement every morning, and there he sits surrounded by his work and his memories. He re-emerges for lunch. After a nap, he goes back down. \u201cThere, he exercises his memory. Going back and forth, he exercises his heart,\u201d says his family resignedly.<\/p>\n

What about the future of this material, which connects Assis Horta inextricably to present life and his rich past? Only Isnard has the nerve to even ask him such a question. \u201cIt is mine while I\u2019m here,\u201d replied the father. \u201cAfter that, it is up to you.\u201d<\/p>\n

Last August, during a three-hour interview at his home, ZUM heard his well-considered comments on each photo he was shown. When memory faltered or a date confused him, he did not become impatient. He is fully aware that with the passage of time not everything is solved in the first click.<\/p>\n

Asked whether he carries any of his photos in pectore, considering it the most beautiful, historical, difficult or unique, Assis Horta did not hesitate. Pointing to a picture frame in prime position in the room, he was emphatic: \u201cThat one.\u201d It was a picture of his marriage to Maria 72 years ago. \u201cI even took the camera for Chichico to take the picture.\u201d<\/p>\n

Apparently, the man and the renowned portraitist do not fight each other. Few great artists are so stripped of useless vanity. The photograph that he likes most does not have his signature. But it brought happiness. \/\/\/<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

images<\/strong>: \u00a9 Assis Horta<\/p>\n

The image processing was made by Studio Anta. Thanks to XII Marc Ferrez Photography Award from FUNARTE.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Assis Horta<\/strong> (1918) was born in Diamantina, where he ran the studio Photo Assis. He now lives in Belo Horizonte.<\/p>\n

Dorrit Harazim <\/strong>(1943) is a journalist and columnist for the ZUM website.<\/p>\n

\/\/\/<\/p>\n

Get to know<\/a> ZUM\u2019s issues | See<\/a> other highlights from ZUM #7 | Buy<\/a> this issue
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The nonagenarian photographer from Minas Gerais state immortalised the architectural heritage and the society of Diamantina. But his career got a new impulse in 1943, with the Labour Laws, promulgated by President Get\u00falio Vargas. 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