Although he did something entirely different for a living, my father was a classically trained pianist and alternated his afterwork and weekend “armchair time” between watching football matches and listening to classical music. The fact that he skipped a generation or two before having kids of his own meant that he got to be the cool bachelor uncle to our 6 cousins. In the 1960s and 70s that meant that he (also a lover of cars and road trips) would often drive long distances with one or more of his nieces and nephews, opening himself up to their younger musical tastes along the way. A trace of those golden years was always found in his car; cassettes featuring the likes of Simon & Garfunkel, Queen, Pink Floyd, ABBA, Nana Mouskouri, Bee Gees. Through my mother, I became enamoured with Janis Joplin and David Bowie, not the most common taste for a pre-teen in the 90s. As a child, going to a concert (often times a classical one) was a frequent occurrence that I didn’t appreciate enough. More “exotic” artists were also introduced early on to me and my sister, by my parents, in live concerts, such as the exuberant Brazilian artist Ney Matogrosso and the unique Portuguese Maria João. Growing up, I developed a rather eclectic musical taste, exploring my own paths, often through meeting new people and living in different countries. Looking back on it, the use of the “music has always been a part of me” cliché seems called for. To this day, and I’m guessing forever, music is the background to a large portion of my everyday.

So I guess its not incredibly surprising that I captioned the first iteration of my annual self-portraiture challenge with lyrics. Some of the photographs were captioned in a rather indirect way (maybe inspired by a mood or even just the listening of a specific song that day), others have some sort of intentionally abstract or hidden meaning. Some, maybe, were captioned in a more straight forward – and less forcibly artsy – way. Here’s a little sample, all portraits made in April 2019.