Ágata
Ágata was her name. Polish I believe. I saw her as I reached Praça da Batalha square, Porto. Her dark black hair on snow white skin. A cigarette in her right hand squeezed tight. And the lips. Lips a man sees in his dreams.
I walked to the middle of the plaza pretending to look for photo opportunities. But she was it, my target. I was waiting on her to walk towards me, as she did. I asked her shyly.
“Can I make a portrait of you? Please?”
She smiled. She could see the twinkle in my eye. At that moment I was “in love.” And she had seen that look before. Men drunk on her beauty, lusting for a glimpse, a memory. She was a dark angel throwing arrows at my heart in this gloomy day. She knew it.
“What's your name?”
“Ágata.”
I smiled. Ágata the artistic name of popular Portuguese singer, Maria Fernanda Pereira de Sousa (b.1959), which reached solo success in 1994 with “Perfume de Mulher” (Perfume of a Woman).
“Can you do it like this?” And I showed her the pose, lifting two fingers to my lips. The first image I had on my mind when I saw her was William “Bad Boy” Klein's “Smoke + Veil, Paris” 1958 photograph while working for Vogue magazine.
At the time the photograph was shocking. A woman smoking? And without gloves and cigarette holder above all else? What kind of woman could she be? I pulled up my Ricoh GRII camera, on the 28mm lens she was far, distorted. I stepped closer, still not smelling her perfume, trying to fill the frame, lining up to her nose. She didn't move away, she held the pose for a few seconds. She gave me three shots. That was it. If I didn't got it, that was on me. Only at home I saw it, on the big screen. I got it! The gaze, the lips, the smile, the cigarette. “Gaze + Lips, Porto” my Klein version. Three shots and she struck out of my life. Disappearing before I could sip more of her beauty. The only thing missing on this photo is her twinkle. On her eyes there is no “love” for me. Just a hint of temptation, a femme fatale with a stiletto puncturing our chest.
(May 2017, Porto, Portugal)
©Nuno Ferreira Monteiro