Services

A session is not a shooting day

A session is not a shooting day. It is usually many days of meaningful communication and preparation work. I take this process seriously, so I try to understand as fully as I can what my clients need, and to offer them exactly the experience they want.

Every case is unique, like Madeira itself. People from different parts of the world look at our beautiful island differently, and they see themselves on it in ways that differ even more. Some dream of bright, sunny, warm photographs with emotion, calm, love and tenderness in them. Others want the epic scale of the landscapes and the feeling of having been somewhere exotic, with the photoshoot as the artistic record and the proof of that event.

Proposals take the most preparation

The most preparation work goes into proposals, because the guys are nervous and they dream of everything going as smoothly and calmly as possible, so that the whole surprise works out a hundred per cent. Once he writes, the young man realises he has come to a professional. The preparation work then takes a fairly large part of the time: discussing the places, the details, the particulars of their relationship and what she likes.

It gives good results on the day of the shoot. That holds whatever we arrive at, a surprise where I am just a tourist with a camera, or a photo session with an unexpected proposal in the middle of it. It is always a celebration, an event that stays in the life of the newly engaged couple and leaves its mark on me too. For me it is a joy and an honour to be the one who is both a witness and a participant in these events. The three ways of shooting a proposal are described on the proposal photography page.

If you have never been in front of a camera

People who are shy with a camera come to me fairly often. For them I suggest simple actions, a little like acting exercises, that let you live the moment for real. He lies down with his head on her knees so she can stroke his hair. They look into each other’s eyes and think about their own dreams and secrets. They kiss.

Simple but romantic situations, easy to do for people who have perhaps never been photographed before. They give excellent results, pleasant to look at and pleasant to live through during the session. It is not done so much for the frames. It is part of life itself and of living the experience inside a trip to Madeira. You would agree that anyone would enjoy sitting at sunset with the person they love on a volcanic beach. Looking into each other’s eyes, stroking and kissing, and being beautifully photographed while it happens. More on how that runs: couples and proposal sessions.

Families, from three people to a crowd

I photograph families of different sizes, and often it is close to a crowd. Any group of people can be placed in the frame in an interesting way if everyone has the motivation to be photographed. That is not always the case, and then I go to the traditional classical methods: we construct the frames, keep them restrained, more classical in the posing.

That has a charm of its own. The nature of Madeira, the light, my own artistic decisions as an author and the honesty of the emotional state people are in: all of it turns into work you want to look at and want to show. Family sessions have their own page.

Light, and not only sunset

Far from every session happens in the hour before sunset. Less often, but I also shoot at sunrise. Sunrise and sunset on Madeira give that light and shadow pattern which builds volume, depth of colour, and emotion and aesthetics you cannot put into words. I simply prefer the evening light myself. Sunset here moves by about four hours across the year, and the month by month breakdown has the numbers.

What happens after the session

After the session comes the period of choosing the best photographs and editing them. On the shoot itself I already understand which frames will go into the final set. But when I open them on a large monitor I often want to add more to the collection than is needed, and I am often guilty of that.

Clients who agree that their photographs reach a viewer also get additional author’s work. The purely commercial task, to shoot and edit finished frames of a good level, is always done. But sometimes I am allowed to move a session from commercial status to art, the kind I am proud of and want to show on this site, in galleries and on social media. Then I bring every frame up to my own vision as an author.

Many hours of work go into that, not into one preset but into several stages and iterations. I go through the layers of editing from the most significant changes to the colour decisions, the microcontrast and the small corrections. That happens in several passes, on different days and at different times of day. Every photograph has to be exact and to give the client and any viewer the same emotions and aesthetic experience it gives me. Delivery times and prices are on the pricing page.

Solo, or rather individual projects

This is not even solo, it is individual projects, most often for people who have their own brand or who are the brand themselves. Those sessions have their own page.

I treat commercial projects and the personal projects of people the same way when their image is part of their own art performance, when they live life beautifully and want to bring more aesthetics into it and keep it. Inspiration from personalities and their creative fluids plays a large role for me. The same as the atmosphere of kindness, happiness and wellbeing in family sessions, and the atmosphere of love, mutuality and anticipation of a happy future with couples.