Could you briefly introduce yourself, who you are, where you come from and where you live now? A little bit about your personal background.
I'm a 29 year old photographer living in a seaside village called Cascais (near Lisbon, Portugal). I've spent my whole life here and would find it hard to ever leave. It's the perfect sunny spot between the hustle and bustle of the capital and the tranquility of the Sintra-Cascais Natural Park. I graduated in Multimedia Art and studied Design and New Media at the Faculty of Fine Arts. My plan was to become a graphic designer, specifically for User Interfaces, but Instagram ended up having a big influence on my career path and I can say that nowadays I'm a photographer. Photography is an art that I've always loved thanks to my father, but I never thought it could be a possible professional field for me, even though I already chose photography for all optional courses and annual projects during my bachelor's degree. I didn't really know at the time that it was actually my biggest passion because I was mainly focused on the fact that it was rather difficult to become a professional photographer, especially in Portugal.
How did you start your career as a photographer? How has your personal style developed over the years?
Thanks to my experiments with mobile photography and creative editing, I started to attract attention on Instagram. I did it just for fun, but it was the beginning of my career as a photographer. PICKMOTION was actually one of the first ways to make money from these images. And more brands gradually contacted me to photograph their products in this creative way. My style naturally evolved and became something else as I switched to a DSLR and became more and more interested in the editing process - my creativity started to express itself more in experimenting and working with colors, but of course collaborations continued to happen. Since the beginning of last year, 2019, I have been a full-time photographer, continuing to work with brands for content creation and distribution, selling limited edition prints of my work, but also presets and of course, together with you, wonderful PICKMOTION products!
What inspires you and why?
This question is very tricky and can often lead to an unclear answer. Inspiration is very easy to find these days. In college, you would study and analyze the work of renowned artists to find, develop and apply inspiration to your own personal work. Today, with a quick scroll on Instagram, you can find images that inspire you for the day or even the whole year. But more than specific artists or themes, I think I am most inspired by individual images that I see every day - either by artists or not. If you ask me what influences me, it's different. Colors in particular influence me a lot, but also the weather on a shooting day, as this affects how the light reflects on a certain color. For example, I don't go out to shoot on gray and cloudy days - I need sunny subjects to be able to do my thing!
Your pictures often look like paintings – how did you develop this style?
Over time. Time is often the most important thing you can give your work. I've always been curious about how presets and filters are developed and wanted to learn how to edit an image from scratch and the visual possibilities it offers. I spent a lot of time in Lightroom until I got to a point where I was almost 100% happy. I don't use presets in my own images as I edit each set individually because I believe I get the best results that way. My editing style often gives a subtle but surreal feeling that something in the image isn't real, and that's just because of the colors - unintentional at first, but thankfully it gives my images a painterly quality that I really enjoy and that I keep hearing others feel the same way.
You have traveled a lot for your pictures, that's very amazing! What would be one (or some) of the most impressive or inspiring things you have experienced on these trips?
When you travel with a camera, you automatically observe people and places more and you start paying attention to details. I am always inspired by everyday life - I am thinking of a moment that struck me in Budapest when I walked into a thermal baths room early in the morning, clearly occupied by locals and not tourists, and experienced a unique silence that filled this special place. I have never experienced silence in such a way. That is what I enjoy most and what inspires me when I travel - finding and experiencing a moment or scene that is fundamentally different from anything I experience at home.
How do you feel about the IG community you've built? Do you often interact with other IG users?
I think the community is one of the main reasons I'm able to continue doing what I love, so I'm especially grateful for it and happy that I can continue to grow. I mostly connect with Portuguese IG members, but I love every Instagram trip or Insta meetup. These are the people who understand my passion more than anyone else and it's great to talk about it and do photoshoots together.
How and why did you start using Instagram as a platform to showcase your artwork?
I didn't think much about it when I joined Instagram, so I don't think there's a very strong "why." It was an interesting, new platform to try out. I started using it in 2011 to find other people's work and get inspiration. I don't think I started posting myself until 2012. Back then, I thought of it as a visual diary - instant moments of my days that could be shared visually. It all started from there.
Do you have a favorite photo you have taken and what is the story behind it?
No particular image springs to mind at the moment, but a series of images of La Muralla Roja, which I visited last year, are high on my list of favourites. Mainly because it was a place I had wanted to visit for a long time and finally got around to it. It felt quite surreal to "live" there, even if only for a few days. I had that constant feeling of well-being you get when you wake up from a beautiful dream. I had no internet or TV and was alone, so it was just about enjoying the place and photographing it all day. I would go back in a heartbeat.
Finally, could you tell us some of your personal favorite Instagram accounts?
This is also a difficult question because the list could go on forever. In no particular order and just because these are the names that come to mind right now: @the__marbles , @teklan , @xuebing_du , @peach.punk , @anassouaziz …
