Photo of the Month (October 2025 Edition): Backyard Shapes

After a few months of field campaign, working travel, and a very brief rest, September turned out to be exhausting and full. My gear stayed packed away until the very last moment, waiting for some random opportunity that never came. In the final rays of light for the month, already desperate after not having even turned on the camera for five or six weeks, I stopped everything I was doing and decided to create that long-awaited opportunity myself. This time, I didn’t get far, which turned out to be a very good thing. I had fifteen minutes of light, literally, to make do in the backyard.

In my photography studies, I’ve come across the argument several times that a good project or good photos “begin in your own backyard.” In fact, this month’s experience reminded me of the small book published by the great João Marcos Rosa about his three months of quarantine during the COVID-19 pandemic. Diary of a Particular Autumn (Vento Leste Publishing) depicts his search for the art of light in his own backyard when he found himself unable to leave it.

Of course, there are backyards and backyards, but I think it’s important to consider the “backyard” not in its literal form, but as the nearby environment that surrounds where we live. That said, I’m not entirely convinced that projects should begin only there, or that everyone devoted to photography needs to document their own backyards. But I also don’t underestimate the power of the backyard as an excellent place to practice and, in doing so, to study one’s own style, aesthetics, and techniques in order to then refine major projects, far from the backyard. I believe that is the true meaning of “begin in the backyard.”