When I was a kid, I had my happiest times traveling with my family. Just go, somewhere, anywhere, I felt great on the road, hoping those days would never end. Luckily, my grandfather liked to make photos and movies, and we would spend hours around those memories. One day he went to the basement and got out his old slide projector. He showed me the photos he made back in Africa, when he was in the army. I didn’t notice it at that time, but those pictures got stuck in my head.

I inherited his video camera. I was around 15 years old and only wanted to be in the ocean, surfing with my friends. I started making some clips of our adventures in and out of the water, traveling through all the Portuguese coast searching for better waves, then I went to Morocco and to Indonesia, and there was something amazing there, something besides the waves : the difference. In the culture, in the people, in the landscape. It was fascinating.

Back in Portugal, I worked a whole summer in a stinky pub to get me a reasonable photo camera.  I decided to go somewhere for some time and work as a volunteer and ended up spending 3 months in one of the biggest archipelagos in the world, in Southwestern Finland.

Back again, I started a project with some friends – VOND Clothing - for which I worked hard for about 3 years, starting from zero, creating a strong brand image and identity, shooting and editing pictures and videos, working on the website and social media, making connections with artists and athletes, controling all the 5 collections we did, selling, and so on. It was an intense experience, we did it in a most professional way, and I really learned a lot. 

Meanwhile my camera got stolen. No problem, I went to the garage and found an old analogic one, I kept on shooting. I worked in other stinky bar, I photographed and edited the entire baptism album of a cousin of mine with a landed camera, got some money, got myself a camera, and decided to do what I was longing for so much time: to leave. To live.

In the end of 2014 I took a plane to Turkey. I spent 3 months there, hitchhiking, camping, volunteering, couchsurfing and photographing. It was in Istanbul that I met the photographer Omar Berakdar and his amazing project, Arthere, a coffeeshop that is also an art atelier, supporting Syrian artists, giving them a place to live and to do their art. I was going out of money and he motivated me to print some pictures and to expose them and sell them in Arthere in the form of postcards. I did so, and I am thankfull to Omar for all his knowledge and support. I left Turkey and kept on travelling, passing by Greece, Italy, Germany and recently by the poor neighbourhoods of giant Cairo.

It was during this travels that I realized my main passion in photography is the people and their life. I realized how easy it is for me to have a conversation with anybody, even if we don’t speak the same language. 

I realized the power of photography.