Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Josue Cardosa. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.

Alright, Josue thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. We’d love to hear about a project that you’ve worked on that’s meant a lot to you.

The most meaningful project that I worked on was my most recent project. I got to create with a past neighbor, now friend Chanel. We’ve worked on other past projects from even capturing her engagement photos, a Miami fruit collab, and some fun in nature. This time we found ourselves on the big island of Hawaii, where I had been staying for over 6 months in an off-grid community in the jungle. Chanel came to stay in my community for two weeks, our project was to create images to aid the website she would be publishing. Meanwhile, this whole time I had spent time connecting with myself, learning effective communication tools, working with the land, and disconnecting from social media. I wasn’t even taking that many photos, I had only begun starting to offer my work towards the end of the journey, so this project was very much intentional.

Trouble in paradise is real, before Chanel had arrived for such a mission’s work, I had started to take effect from living in a harsh off-grid jungle environment compared to my beach on-grid lifestyle. All the elements plus some older chronic illnesses started to flare up due to mold, wetness, and I imagine lack of some things and I almost even passed in between the project. The first couple of days of Chanel being in, I could not talk to her or even move so much. With the little bit of energy I had, I managed to give her a tour and an introduction to the community, so she could integrate and be present as I took time to rest. Rest was the form of laying out at the beach in the sun and in the water, it definitely helped.

As I slowly stuck to healing practices we came up with a plan of action for the main reason for her stay, We decided that the last week would be our creation and capturing days. We planned a road trip and the second was unplanned, that was during and after my almost passing. These road trips were a grand total of going around the big island once, taking photos in the northern, western, southern, and eastern points of the island. We went from the mountain valleys, the beach, the lava fields, and the jungle, to her yoga classes and DJ set. Not all are mentioned in chronological order. We took photos during sunrise, early times, midday, afternoon, sunset, and night. I thoroughly enjoyed the adventure and stuck to a positive attitude by being present with my breath. That is what kept me going. Even though I didn’t talk much, I let my nonverbals like facial communication as a response, it was our plan of action and connection fueling the creative expression.

About halfway into production, one night, I couldn’t breathe and had to get in a car and drive to the coast to sleep. That was my second time sleeping in the car and saw I wasn’t making too many improvements. Nights were terrible and I had to use most of my daytime to rest to have energy for the production. At that midpoint, I started sleeping in better conditions at Airbnbs until it was time to leave the island. It was so bad that I had to leave and go somewhere I could recover my health back up. The finale shoot was back in my childhood area of Southwest Florida out where the sugar sand meets the pine trees and final sunset on the west. These are some of my best works that I enjoyed the process from the planning to the editing.

TLDR;
I got to create visuals
for a close friend
for a week or so
in hawaii.

Josue, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?

I got into photography through my love of the visual arts of movies and films in late 2010,my family gifted me a camera. I enjoyed the creativity and art of entertainment and wanted to create my own visual representation. Learning how Television production worked as my four-year focus in High School My freshmen year in University I chose to learn the basics of how to use a camera. I enjoyed live music, so I worked closely with my university clubs to capture events and live music. Even learning through the photography club. I studied a lot of free online courses to learn alongside my studies and work. Capturing primarily portraits and events. Working with artists, even at festivals like Rolling Loud Miami, all the way to capturing weddings, I just did what I found love in. Capturing and creating alongside my fellow human beings, eternalizing the reflection and my view of history in front of our own eyes. I have found out that I have a passion for helping out others and sometimes they need a visual representation of special moments that they will have for life. The product is birthed from our unique connection.

Let’s talk about resilience next – do you have a story you can share with us?

I imagine it would from this very own story, where I almost died and didn’t give up. Even though I had no words, I still moved through the earth. The universe wanted me to complete my mission, it just wanted me to do it differently. I also had to choose and flow with my radical decisions, returning back.

Is there mission driving your creative journey?

To use art as a healing form, capturing the growth, divine expression, release, and have fun!

Contact Info:

• Website: www.swayphotos.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/sway.photos/
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/91sway

Image Credits
Chanel Vanzant-Model of the meaningful project Credit for my feature photo of myself by @Gissy.moon