Untitled Photograph

While sitting in the front seat of a car, Rangel photographed children playing on the sidewalk in what appears as a largely white populated neighborhood in Lourenço Marques. Perhaps waiting for a friend to go for a drink or a colleague for an upcoming assignment for the newspaper he worked, Rangel used the camera's lens to connect with a seemingly non-newsworthy subject, children playing. The ordinariness of the scene reflects that it would not have necessarily appeared next to photographs of colonial military marches in the newspaper. But, the windshield's framing qualities and the act of photographing from within the car reflects the personal importance of the subject to Rangel. The windshield frames the scene, serving as a stage of sorts, and Rangel with his camera is the audience watching and enjoying the performance. In a way, the framing of the shot makes it appear as a sort of a daydream for Rangel, whose own childhood was instrumental in the types of shots he photographed and his way of seeing the world. Popular and historical narratives written after independence classified Rangel as an anti-colonial photographer of mainly black communities in colonial Mozambique. Shots like these reflect the range of Rangel's subjects and the color lines he crossed with the camera. Such pictures also give a glimpse of life outside of the black communities and also the similar recreational activities both blacks and whites participated in despite living separately. At another level, pictures like this also speak to the shared human experiences marginalized by color boundaries.