José Bacelar is a Portuguese photographer living in Porto, Portugal.
He started his career working as a press photographer but little by little has moved away from editorial and media work to concentrate on his personal projects that most often develop into books and exhibitions. His style is defined by raw highly contrasted black and white photographs that look and feel natural. Following an approach that blend documentary and conceptual, his work is a disenchanted record of life and its contemporary consequences.
Bacelar sees photography in the same way he sees life, taking it to the limits of his quest for answers and experiences that help him to better understand both the world and himself.
You can find his work published in several books and magazines as well as in private and public collections around the world. His last book, (O)Porto, was released in 2016 and he is currently working on a new project.
Over the last few years it has been possible to enjoy his exhibitions in Lisbon, Porto, Coimbra, Braga, London, Oslo, Paris, Riga, Arles, among other cities.