Untitled Photograph

Children as a photographed subject featured prominently within Ricardo Rangel's images during the colonial and independence periods in Mozambique. From a visual standpoint, the picturing of children allowed Rangel to photographically capture the realities of black and white communities, especially during the colonial period. The photographing of children was also a topic that spoke directly to the despairs and inequalities of colonialism and independence in addition to each period's hopes and aspirations. Furthermore, the photographing of children such as those pictured here did not only speak to Mozambique's social and economic conditions but also to Rangel's own personal biography. The children here are barefoot and not attached to a particular home or family. They are lost and the street is there home. Rangel found a home through his camera and the various people it connected him with in Mozambique's urban and rural streets.
At a very early age, Rangel's father left him and mother. In addition to spending the bulk of his childhood with his grandmother, Rangel moved often when he was young. Rangel identified with the displacement and abandonment these children faced. This photograph is also characteristic of Rangel's unique style to fit multiple scenes within a single frame. In the photograph's background there is moving traffic. The mid-ground-features, two young men walking around a street corner, upon which they and the viewers come across this group of four children, carrying bunches of weeds. Rangel had a magnificent way of observing and capturing human activity. Two children appear talking, another staring directly into Rangel's camera's lense and the other thinking as he plays with his hands.