Tadeu Bianconi, photographer and Professor of Photography, was born and raised in the city of Colatina in the rural interior of Espírito Santo state in the 1960's. His vocation and passion for photography found expression in 1986 when Tadeu, then 22 years old, attended journalism school and was introduced to this form of art by a Germany photographer living in Brazil. Tadeu soon developed his own fluid style, reflecting his perceptions and capturing in his photographs the sensations of the world around him.

Still living in Colatina, Tadeu encountered Hansen's Disease through the aunt of a friend, who was diagnosed with the illness. His photographic record of Colony Hospital Pedro Fontes began in 2002 when he was invited by his friend, Patrícia Deps, to join her on her visits to the colony to register the essence of the place and capture its history.

Through his images, Tadeu caught the feeling of the colony where people lived against their will, separated from their relatives, but where they helped to relieve each other’s suffering. Tadeu documented the architectural style of the Colony of Intanhenga complex, which opened in 1937, and which through his eyes was important for the history of medicine and of Hansen's Disease in Brazil. In Tadeu’s photographs, concrete details transcend the colony’s environment to create abstract images. His eye didn’t miss any part of the extensive complex through his lens, photographing the pavilions, homes, football pitch, and Alzira Bley Educational building. But it was in registering the residents that Tadeu showed his special ability to shoot people's daily lives with spontaneity and without interference. Tadeu sees himself as a humanist spectator, demonstrating a deep sensibility that has created the wonderful works of art reproduced here.