July 9th, 2026
Back in April, a photographer I've been following for a while for his unique style and originality, shared he was going to do a workshop in his studio to share his knowledge and how he comes up with his images. I jumped at it straight away. Even though it is not exactly my style, I love his colourful and playful portraits, and getting more and more into studio photography, every little crumb of knowledge is most welcome. You can check João's work on his website.
You really should check him out
I've been binging studio tutorials for years, practicing at home every time I can, but not having a dedicated space slows my progress somewhat. It was a great opportunity to have a proper studio experience, with a pro model and a pro make up artist (shout out to Bárbara and Flávia!). João showed us his small studio that he makes look enormous in his images, and explained his lighting setup. Before that he showed us a bit of is pre-production workflow, showing us a couple o mood boards and the results of those photo shoots. Then we jumped up straight into action - the lights were already setup, we chose the colours based on the model's looks and he gave us the camera to experiment.
I began with "safe" compositions, I'm still a bit boring, I know...
The environment was great, and I learned a lot with Bárbara (the model) and the other photographers about directing a model - something I'm still not confident or great at. Lighting is easy compared to driving another person into doing what you want and looking their best. Up until now I've been more of a documentary photographer, capturing moments, not creating them. Creating them is a whole different muscle I need to build up.
These two were my favourites of the day, after I got a little more comfortable.
While we didn't mess with the lighting all that much, for the last look we got a snoot in hand and did a cool effect with Bárbara's eyes, using a coloured key light as well to make it a bit more "out of the box".
I need to get better at Affinity (I kinda refuse to use Photoshop), but I'm happy overall with my edits (except the floor I couldn't clean up all that well, but it was a workshop, and we didn't need to waste new background paper).
I'm really happy with the results, even happier with the confidence and knowledge I gained. Hope to start doing this more often, already thinking about remodelling my home studio. I still don't know what my style is or how it will evolve (does anyone?), but I got a bit closer to it after this. Even concerts I've done after incorporate some concepts from this day. Always learning.
I'm available for colourful shoots, hire me, please... 😅
Miguel