A series of portraits, of people and the love for photography. Ep.01

What I find curious when I do these type of shoots is that we don't need much to take good pictures, authentic images of a person, everyone is beautiful, the word beautiful is the big problem, what is beautiful and what defines beauty?

Fuji GFX50s - Distagon 45mm - 1/200s f6.3 ISO800

Fuji GFX50s - Sonnar 140mm - 1/2500s f3.5 ISO800

In this episode we will see the personal shoot for Ana, a model and a friend of mine, we knew each other a long time ago.

We did this in 2019, it was around two hours shoot, and I had just bought my new camera and had been doing a few photography services in a local hotel, so I thought to use the hotel for this.

Beforehand, we plan a mood board for the shoot.

I like to allow her to flow from pose to pose.

We define what to wear and what kind of mood. It's usually a model's choice.

Sometimes I bring along my Bluetooth speaker, and we listen to some music, an excellent tip I got from the Sasser Boudoir page is to bring candy, it's a sweet treat when in these situations.

I usually like to start with a long lens, in this case, the 140mm, it brings a distinct cinematic look that is "easy "to achieve and that builds confidence, especially with the model.

When she starts to get more comfortable, I tend to change the lens to something wider.

Fuji GFX50s - Distagon 35mm - 1/200s f3.5 ISO800

Fuji GFX50s - Distagon 45mm - 1/400s f5.6 ISO800

Fuji GFX50s - Distagon 35mm - 1/500s f4 ISO800

Fuji GFX50s - Distagon 35mm - 1/320s f3.5 ISO800

Fuji GFX50s - Distagon 35mm - 1/500s f4 ISO800

The Porta Nova Hotel Collection House is in Braga, and the top floors are lovely with this wooden ceiling. I enjoy having these shoots there.

I shot a few promotional videos for them, and they offered the space to take some pictures.

But you too can shoot at hotels. You can trade-in some shots of a portion of the Hotel or some promotional material, nothing to “heavy“, for some hours in a hotel room so you can shoot some of this kind of portraits with different spaces to explore each time.

The staff of the Hotel was super kind and provided us with everything we needed.

If you’re in town, you should take a look. It has a beautiful mood.

You can follow Ana on her Instagram → @ana_goncalves26.

You can follow the Hotel on Instagram → @portanova_ch

The next episode will be about the Zeiss Sonnar 140mm, and it will come out on Tuesday.

I will be doing a series on these kinds of shoots if you have any suggestions feel free to send me a message.

Have you ever done a photoshoot like this? What is your experience with this kind of shooting?

See you next time!

Pedro Lucas
Photographer/Director