The Good of The Earth – Biographical Essay for Fine Art Photographer Loscar Numael
The Puerto Rican landscape photographer Loscar Numael is emerging as the visual poet of the whole Caribbean region. We worked together to provide more context and meaning for his raw and sharply-realised photographs. It was a great opportunity to learn about the fascinating history and ecological beauty of Puerto Rico and tell a larger story about Loscar’s talents.
Don`t worry about the noise
Don`t worry about the water
Don`t worry about the wind –
If you are going out
Beware of mangoes
And all such beautiful
sweet things
– Victor Hernandez Cruz, The Problem With Hurricanes (1949)
The great Puerto Rican poet Victor Hernandez Cruz knew intimately that the tropical beauty of his birthplace was a double-edged sword. Storm-ravaged, rain-soaked, conquered and capriciously ruled, pulled in one direction by Spain, yanked in another by the US – the island has suffered its sorrows. With dignity. When the Roosevelt-era documentary photographer Jack Delano – kin to the social realism photography of Walker Evans and Dorothea Lange – arrived on assignment in Puerto Rico in the early 1940s, he found a country almost beaten by its plight. In the Foreword to Puerto Rico Mio, his seminal book published by the Smithsonian, he wrote: “I’d seen plenty of poverty before but never anything like this.” Still Delano ended up making San Juan his home. Even in hard times, Puerto Rico had its charms. The lure of the island has never been denied.
Fine art photographer Loscar Numael cuts to the core of what makes Puerto Rico – or anywhere else he shoots – alluring. He has a sharp eye for when beauty becomes compelling. When it commands attention. His series of photographs – both black-and-white long exposure and lush color – shot around Puerto Rico are marked by a native son’s appreciation for his heritage. And a sensitivity to the lush details of sub-tropical life.
Now living in Atlanta, Numael was raised in Arecibo, El Diamante Del Norte. His boyhood was bound together by his tight-knit family and island traditions: heaping mounds of mofongo at seaside cafes in the summer, octopus salad at Lent, dragged to church year round. The customs of the barrio can never be unlearned no matter where you go. While studying for a professional career, Numael gave himself a hobo stage and went rough-necking his way all over the island. “I was curious about all the little side roads and got good at spotting unmarked paths into the forest.” That adventure inspired his photography. The good of the earth got under his skin.
Despite only being 100 miles by 35 miles from east to west and south to north, Puerto Rico is a jigsaw puzzle of micro climates and a marvel of biodiversity. A short drive will take you from the dry forest at Guanica with its snub trees and cactus to El Yunque, the height of the tropical rainforest. The indigenous Taino people who pre-dated the Spanish conquistadors in Puerto Rico believed their god of good energy, Yocahu, lived high in the mountains of El Yunque where the hot tropical air rises, chills and tatters to a ragged mist. It’s like a paradise lost up there and you realise how much the whole island still thrives on the force of those old legends.
Numael is attentive to the mythical pull of all these places. His photographs seem to evoke that energy. In his black-and-white long exposures, he carves down the landscape to it most elemental features. And his color work feels like a Caribbean opera pulsing with drama. In the photograph, Venetum, a graceful gem, Numael is telling the story of Puerto Rico in one fell swoop. Beneath a vast sky dominated by on-rushing clouds, the island is just a thin strip. Here comes trouble again. The force of nature has always held true supremacy on this island no matter Spanish or American efforts to take control. In fact, hurricane is an old Taino word – huracano as the Spanish transcribed it. But Puerto Ricans have long ago made their bitter peace with nature and Numael makes visual poetry from all its rough brilliance and zen beauty.
