book god less america

God ’lessAmericaby Mr. Esgar

Traficantes IlimitadosAgosto 2010

Never thought of me as a photographer. In fact

for the last 20 years I’ve not even owned a

camera. The only reason for that was the fact that I

never had the skills to capture on film what I could

see... That’s why, early on my twenties, I decided just

to draw and paint and leave photography for those

who could explore it as an artistic expression.

In the summer of 2007 my friend António Luís,

who is aware of my long time passion for north

american pop culture icons and landscape, knew I

was traveling to the United States and gave me one

of his cameras. While driving me to the airport he

told me: “Man, don’t come back unless you bring

1000 photos!”. Still not thinking of me as a pho-

tographer, even with a camera on my hands after

almost 20 years, I couldn’t disappoint him. While

on the road, for 4 weeks and through 13 states, I

started shooting almost everything I saw and re-

turn to Portugal, with not 1000, but more than 4000

photos. I guess António Luís was very proud of me!

All those photos were kept on an hard drive for

almost an year, until I was invited by another friend,

valter hugo mãe, to post my works on his blog.

Thought that could be interesting to show some of

them to an audience beyond my friends so I’ve cho-

sen 99 photos to publish on a daily basis. (For this

book, I kept out some of them).

The initial idea for this series came from the title

of a LP released by Crypt Records: God ‘Less

America. As in the record, I’ve tried to choose not

postcards but a more “obscure” side of America; a

realistic “landscape” not as shown on Hollywood

movies or as you can shoot on touristic sites. Forget

the Statue of Liberty. Here you’ll find empty streets

and lonely people. The real America, not the blessed

by God.

Esgar Acelerado August, 2010

6 | God ‘less America

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(c) Traficantes IlimitadosAgosto 2010

book god less america

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