Brazilian women meeting in stockholm
How Do You Document Crucial Moments in an Event where You Don't Understand The Language?
bcg offices & aveqia stockholm
I was approached by Amanda, a Brazilian woman living in Stockholm, to document unique event, a first of her own. 16 Brazilian women living around the world, would come to join her in Stockholm to share their views on living and career.
The event spread across the entire weekend in April and consisted of 3 parts - the conference at BCG offices with guest lecturers, a fun bonding activity of baking Swedish cinnamon buns at AVEQIA Stockholm and a mixed day of panel discussions and spa hour at famous Ellery Beach House.
The most important detail was that the event, for the most part, would be run in Brazilian. When you don't speak the language and you have no idea what the discussion is about it might be harder to anticipate whether a key moment (that should make it into photos) is about to happen. But it is doable!
Throughout the event I relied not only on my observing skills, ability to read body language but also bonding with the women over the break to get to know them, which made it much easier to be able to anticipate their reactions throughout the conference.
important elements of every event
Energy. Emotions. Interactions.
I wanted to really do justice to the energy in the room that was so strongly present throughout the whole day.
I observed and walked quietly among the women and documented even the tiniest interactions as they held truly great emotions.
Every event like this requires an undivided attention from a photographer and being able to anticipate when the key moments happen in order to catch them on camera. But I also put a lot of focus on documenting the in-between to catch all the unexpected moments.
Together & Alone
One of the important components I always pay attention to is how the reactions and emotions of individuals complete the whole picture.
To tell a story of what was truly unfolding and what impact it had on the participants can't be done with exclusively group shots. The women in this event experienced truly transformative moments and so I focused among other things on also carefully documenting individual emotions via carefully taken portraits of the participants.
Bonding over Swedish Culture
After the first day of the conference, we changed the venues and arrived to AVEQIA Stockholm, an establishment organising a cooking/baking experience for companies and events.
The women got to try to bake their own cinnamon buns and the experience was filled with non-ending laughs and joy!
