Rafael Oliveira

Rafael Oliveira, a trained historian, a visual archivist by profession and a tourist-traveller by choice, is a travel photography and writing blogger, having been nominated in the Photography category at the BTL - Blogger Awards (2016 and 2017) and finalist of the Discoveries Awards 2019, in the Writing category. In his spare time, he dedicates himself to his three great passions: Photography, History, and Travel.

In 2011, you created a blog. How did the idea of becoming a travel photographer and a blogger come about?

OLIRAF derives from Rafael Oliveira. The idea of the name for a blog of a more personal nature came up during a talk, in 2008, with my family friend, Vítor Fernandes, a visual artist from Carnaxide, who advised me to create a pseudonym for my recent artistic facet, namely, photographic art. I entered the blogosphere by mere chance. I belong to a generation that used, and still uses, blogs to research and extract information on countless topics. It was during a Middle Ages History class, when I was attending the second year of the Degree in History at FCSH-UNL. During the presentation to the teacher, one of the greatest specialists in Military History of the Portuguese Middle Ages, Professor Miguel Gomes Martins, asked me what I liked to do in my spare time. I said that one of my passions was to travel around Portugal and photograph the countless medieval castles, a bit like the royal squire of D. Manuel I, Duarte d'Armas, who was commissioned to register and draw the countless “stone warriors” along the Portuguese-Spanish border. 
This "dream" materialized later in the OLIRAF blog. I still did not have the idea of becoming a blogger, nor had I discovered my “niche” market. It was simply to enjoy the moment and, later, I focused on the dissemination of my images and travel literature, particularly the publishing of travel chronicles. 

You wrote in your blog that "In our travels we are able to feel what we were, what we are and what we can be..." To what extent the trips you made changed your life?

My travels, whether for work, in an academic context or on vacation, always have a photographic purpose. Even today, armed with a camera, I try to materialize this idea. With the dissemination of our travel photography and writing project, through the numerous mentions on our blog, our desire to travel also grew. In travel, the most important thing is not the destination, but the journey itself. As an apprentice traveller, quoting the geographer Orlando Ribeiro, I have a lot to learn and know while traveling. For me, travel is the best personal growth investment. It is kind of a “hidden curriculum”. Unfortunately, I did not have the opportunity to carry out an Erasmus program. Today, I regret it. Traveling helps us get to know the best in ourselves. It puts us in situations that we are not used to in everyday life, makes us internalize other mentalities and places us in enriching experiences for our growth. For example, the development of different travel plans or itineraries in the face of a sudden change. And this can be an asset to our professional and personal life. This responsibility to offer different program content and innovative experiences has led us to promote tourist resources and products with a positive impact on the territory. Nowadays, people prefer to spend more time in a certain region than to have a fleeting passage. Call it Experience Tourism. 

When did you have your first contact with photography?

I had been a hobbyist photographer since 2008. I remember that, during a weekend trip through the Alentejo region, I went to visit the municipality of Montemor-o-Novo. I was fascinated by the size of its medieval castle, the abandoned ruins of its interior, and the surrounding landscape. It was there that the “animal” was born for photography, and the passion to photographically inventory the countless castles in our country. Today this desire persists, thankfully.

How would you describe your photographic style?

I do not exactly have (or choose) a style. Styles choose me. The field of photography is, like blog’s, quite broad and diverse. I think I am a photographer of different styles that will reveal themselves according to my experiences throughout life. Each person expresses his or her artistic freedom in a different way. I admit that my photographic style focuses mainly on my experiences over more than three decades, particularly documentary and travel photography, directed to the theme of Visual Storytelling. I try to focus and specialize in a certain area. The interest in History and Geography are notorious in my photographic glance. This is the case of both my landscape photography and my heritage and documentary photography. My photographic style consists in being aware of my surroundings, the motto is, being at the right place at the right time. As photographer Robert Capa said: “If your photographs aren't good enough, you're not close enough”. For instance, ruined heritage are “invisible places” in the eyes of most of the society. Photographers, however, are more sensitive to the degradation of our abandoned heritage, managing to extract beauty from it. There are few looks, and photographic techniques, less aware of this cause. I try to replicate a little of the concept of fashion photography – the appeal to beauty to sell a particular product or brand – to the historical and cultural heritage. The ruins are also beautiful in their chaos, destruction, and abandonment. 

Where do you find inspiration?

Anywhere. My office is my mind. An artist owes his inspiration to his brain. However, there are places that inspire artistic creation. In my case, when enjoying a landscape, riding a train, or being in a library, I feel the call to create. These are places and spaces that allow us moments of reflection and inspiration. For example, I really like to travel by train. It is a captivating way to appreciate the surrounding landscape and look for inspiration to write while I'm travelling. Sometimes, when reading a book, I find an enticement to go to a certain place that arouses my curiosity. 

In what area or genre of photography do you feel most comfortable or like to work?

Landscape, heritage, and travel photography are my great passions. These three photographic genres reveal a little of my way of being and living in the world, that is, respect for the values of nature and for the heritage legacy of our ancestors is central to my photographic project. "Memory" and "past" are, to me, two especially important words and concepts. In the near future, I intend to focus more on individual portraits of local people. After all, the faces of the Lines of Torres Vedras give them colour and life.

How did the taste for the Military Tourism theme come about?

“The taste for writing grows as one writes”, said Erasmus of Rotterdam. Military Tourism was a taste that gradually grew with me. The taste for all things military started in my teens, when I was a boy scout at the Corpo Nacional de Escutas. Later, with the Degree in History, I started to reconcile the taste for study and historical research, namely in the aspect of Military History. Whenever I do photo reports and travel itineraries for my blog, I try to reconcile them with a military tourism activity. In fact, getting to know our castles, forts and museums is like traveling through history, but it is also an excellent opportunity to get to know our country. This is the spirit that we want to continue promoting in our blog while making our readers aware of the main types of Military tourism. At the end of 2019, I lectured at the Portuguese Association of the Friends of Castles (APAC), “Military Tourism as a way of preserving and safeguarding the historical-military heritage: the case of the OLIRAF blog”, and highlighted the support of several partners and entities, such as Mystical Trip, the Group of Friends of the Portuguese Coastal Artillery, the Historical Route of the Lines of Torres Vedras, and the Almeida Municipality Historic Recreation Group.

What is the difference between photographing military heritage and photographing other themes?

There is a big difference. When photographing the historical-military heritage, whether mobile or immovable, I always have tremendous enjoyment for what I am doing. It is more fun, I admit. I feel more confident and able to photograph something that gives me passion and enjoyment to do. It doesn't even feel like I'm working, but rather that I'm enjoying something. I am privileged to reconcile a taste for History with a passion for Military History. For example, when I am shooting military-historical recreations of the Peninsular War, I feel like I am within the "action" and being transported in a time machine.

The Lines of Torres Vedras allow you to reconcile your three great passions. Have you done any work on this defensive system? 

I confess that this set of small campaign fortifications is one of my great passions. It is a beautiful marriage between Man and Environment. The Lines of Torres Vedras are my emotional heritage, as most of my family roots are in Torres Vedras. There is a lot of built heritage – castles, forts, museums, archaeological sites, churches, and popular architecture – and experiences to discover, see and experience. I do not particularly have a work on the Lines of Torres Vedras. I confess that it is a continuous work. Whenever I have some time available, I go photograph the strongholds, both the visible and the less visible by the public. I already had the opportunity to participate in Fam Trips through the network of municipalities that make up the Historical Route of the Lines of Torres Vedras, and I have had several experiences, namely, tasting the cuisine associated with the theme of the Lines of Torres Vedras (the famous beef Wellington), get to know the local restaurants, Napoleão Taberna, and taste the Torres Vedras wines at Quinta da Boa Esperança and Adega Cooperativa da Carvoeira. I also have numerous articles published on my blog and, more recently, on SAPO TRAVEL, about the Lines of Torres Vedras. This is the case of the São Vicente and the Olheiros forts, which were part of the first defensive line of the Lines of Torres Vedras, and of the historical recreation of the commemorations of the 200th anniversary of the Battle of Vimeiro. I am more regular in Instagram posts. Soon, I will make known on my blog the groups that re-enact historical events, namely, the Guerrilha de Montagraço, the Companhia de Artilharia do Sobral, among others.

How important are travel bloggers in promoting Tourism Military?

Historical-Military Tourism is growing and, with it, a niche that can provide an opportunity for differentiation for travel blogs. It took me a few years to understand where to position my travel blog in the Portuguese market. Recently, at the invitation of Portuguese Military Tourism Association (ATMPT), I had the opportunity to write an article about the importance of travel bloggers for the promotion of Military Tourism. I mentioned that, through their articles on the Internet, bloggers help to captivate broader and more dynamic audiences for the tourist promotion of a certain monument, city, or region. Through the diversity of digital content, bloggers can make known and offer experiences that stand out for the quality of the tourist offer and the diversity of programs. There are more and more followers to know the Military History of their country, namely, the places of the battles and the historical-military heritage associated with it. At the Association of Portuguese Travel Bloggers (ABVP), of which I am a member, we aim to promote ethical and transparent relationships with members, as well as to make readers aware of new types of tourism, including Military Tourism, a “niche market” of the cultural segment. As a result of the Covid-19 pandemic, I feel that people are more sensitive, responsible, and aware of environmental sustainability and knowledge of local heritage. Blogs, in this field, have the necessary “DNA” to motivate readers, and the public I general, to carry out a more sustainable tourism, focusing on experiences in these municipalities or regions, namely in low-density territories. 

What is your opinion on the instantaneity of today's photography and how do you see the world of photography today and in the future?

Photography has changed a lot since it was invented, in the first half of the XIX century. We live in the time of the snapshot, that is, the moment. Social networks and device portability, smartphones, for example, have revolutionized the way we do and see the act of photographing. These came to accelerate the dematerialization of objects and the way we experience our daily lives, the way we travel and the experiences we have through them.
In the future, photography will be more democratic, more accessible, and more shareable. We must protect copyright in the face of increased sharing and digitization of images. I note, with some concern, that people would rather buy a mobile phone than a camera. The mobile phone has become a natural option for those who want good images, without a lot of work, and at all times. People are free to make their own choices. But today, smartphones offer more options for capturing, editing, and sharing images than any other device. They are fast, efficient and with reduced dimensions. They have good technological performance. Whatever the support or device for capturing the images, what matters is how we look at the subject we are photographing. And interpret this reality. We’ll have to educate our society in how to interpret, analyse and extract information from images. We talk a lot about people not knowing how to read and write, but little about visual illiteracy. Will we have visual memory in the future? As an archivist and information professional, I am concerned about the future of photographic documentation. Digital has aggravated this dilemma, given that in the absence of physical support, the safeguarding of image heritage is restricted to content made available online (on servers), and to hard disks. And people do not print photographs or create photo albums, as in the past. The future is digital. And, because of its democratization and dematerialization, photography is more integrated into our lives. 
We are a Screen Society. We live for the Digital World. The need to photograph (and make images) has never been more voracious. People, institutions, and companies need images, in quantity and quality, to feed the digital content of their websites, blogs, catalogues, and social networks. Not wanting to generalize (nor to be a negativist), I’d say that people prefer to live their experiences via social networks rather than enjoy the moment. Today, we take pictures to show and share. Not to remember the moments when we were happy. When we photograph, we should enjoy watching what we see. As Alberto Caeiro rightly said: “The essential is knowing how to see”. We need to recover the “science of seeing”.
The democratization of photography and social networks fostered the generalization of amateur photographers. Many of them have photos with fantastic framing and eye-catching designs. It is essential to learn about photographic techniques and styles, participate in workshops, and follow several professional or amateur photographers, to evolve in photographic art. Visual Memory will not disappear due to the immense number of images captured in digital format. However, in the future, the emergence of digital archives, and of professional and amateur photographers, will have to be encouraged, in order to promote and safeguard the imagery heritage. 

What projects do you have for the future of your career as a photographer?

Well, the future is built on what we learn from the past and what we do in the present. Historian's Word. Our focus is to grow. This photography and travel writing project is the result of an organic, consistent, and persistent growth. At this moment, I intend to give more emphasis to travel writing and photography, through the diversification of content, themes, countries, and ways of traveling. 
In the specific case of the Oeste region, my goal is to write more about its tourist potential in my blog, namely, the continued commitment to Military Tourism, and a new emerging market “niche” in our country: Railway Tourism. With the future electrification of the Oeste Line, visitors will have a more sustainable and differentiating option to discover the vast and rich historical and cultural heritage, movable and immovable, existing in the cities, towns and villages of the municipalities that make up the Historical Route of the Lines of Torres Vedras. See the particular case of the tile heritage of Mafra Station, of Outeiro, and of the Runa stop. 
I also plan to dedicate myself to historical research on the Lines of Torres. I recently read a fiction work, ‘Sergeant Beauchamp's Breakfast’, by Vasco Graça Moura, about the presence of Napoleonic troops during the First Invasion. I was tempted to write a historical novel about a particular figure or episode that occurred during the Third French Invasion in the Lines of Torres Vedras, a reflection on the economic and social impact of this war and the difficult human conditions experienced by the people of the Oeste region. 
I also intend to contribute to the historical recreation of the Peninsular War. At the end of 2019, I joined the Montagraço Guerrilla. Unfortunately, the Covid-19 pandemic changed my plans. However, not everything is bad. Even though at the moment there are no military-historical recreation events from the Peninsular Wars, I have had the opportunity to participate in training with other recreation groups in the West and North regions of the country. It is always a good excuse to photograph and, through my photographic lens, a different way to time travel.

BIOGRAPHICAL NOTE

Rafael Carvalho de Oliveira has a master’s degree in Information and Documentation Sciences (Archival variant), a Degree in History from the Faculty of Social and Human Sciences of Universidade Nova de Lisboa (FCSH-UNL), and a post graduation in History Teaching in the 3rd cycle of Basic Education and Secondary Education, at the same institution. He is a specialist in document processing of Photographic Archives, an area in which he worked in several public institutions and private companies. He develops activities as a photographic documentation technician, integrating the research team that carries out the study and archival treatment of the José Marques Estate, under the Rossio Project (TNDM II).