The portr.aits in this book were made by anonymous “lambe-lambe” photographers in the streets of Belo Horizonte, Brazil, and were not intended to be seen by a larger audience.
Their initial function was for private clients who were in need of portraits for various administrative purposes. The opportunity to see the portraits comes from the photographers’ habit of discarding their negatives in the streets. The negatives were printed once and left in the gutter where they were recuperated by German artist Joachim Schmid over the course of ten years. For Schmid, this collection of portraits is a treasure