More than a camera shutter opened the day the Formento brothers reunited to create magic on film...

BJ (shadow) and J.J. (holding wings) Formento at work on the shoot.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 Examples of BJ Formento’s considerable talent with a camera competed for my attention as I entered the small gallery in Berkeley, California, where the photographer’s latest exhibit, “Positive +,” was being shown. One image in particular grabbed my eye and would not let go.

It was of a young man crouching amid the drab remains of what appeared to be an abandoned train station. He was naked except for feathery white wings that seemed to sprout from his back, and he was glancing warily over one shoulder. The desolate setting and early morning light conveyed a mood of foreboding, and the angelic figure seemed about to take flight.

“People tell me it’s my strongest work to date,” the 34-year-old photographer told me some weeks later. The “angel” in the picture turned out to be his younger brother.

The story behind its making was, to me, a moving account of spiritual connection and the awesome power of that mysterious force known as inspiration.

“I saw those beautiful wings hanging on the wall of a boutique in Berkeley,” BJ recalled, “and the entire image suddenly appeared full-blown in my mind; I knew I just had to make it.”

That was in the summer of 1998, when BJ’s younger brother by three years, J.J., a performer with the Dance Theater of Ireland, had returned to the states for a brief visit. BJ recalled, “I got it in my head to do a series of pictures with him while there was still time.”

The urgency of the project had little to do with the fact that J.J. would shortly be returning to Dublin. Just a few months earlier, BJ had been stunned to learn that his kid brother was HIV positive.

J.J. and BJ are, respectively, the youngest and next-to-youngest of six children. Although born in the United States, they spent their formative childhood years in Manila. “The Philippines was a great place to grow up,” BJ said. “There was lots of freedom to run in the streets with the other kids.”

The Formento family came to California when their father, a chief petty officer in the US Navy, was relocated in 1978. BJ, then 14 years old and starting high school, had difficulty readjusting to life in the states, but 11-year-old J.J. found the change liberating. “It was easier to express feelings in America,” J.J. discovered. As they approached adulthood, the two brothers grew apart due to geographical distance. In 1987, at the age of 20, J.J. took off for Europe to pursue a career in dance. BJ, then 23, was a student at the Academy of Arts in San Francisco. Article continues on next page.