Photography
I’ve been taking pictures since college, long before I thought of photography as part of my work. A camera has always been the way I pay attention.
Today I shoot with a Nikon, a drone and, yes, my phone. Some photographs stay exactly as they are. Many become the starting point of a painting, since most of my canvases begin as a photographic study. Others I paint over, and some I take further, painting frame by frame the movement I imagine inside them, until the photo becomes my interpretation of the moment, not just a record of it.
After dark
Night skies.
Night photography humbled me. I learned it properly in a one-on-one workshop with Ricardo Takamura, who brought light painting into the picture, and I’ve been chasing dark skies ever since: moonrises over Ilhabela, the moon coming up at my sister’s ranch, long exposures where a few seconds of light become a whole sky.
Along the way
Wherever I am.
The rest happens on the way. A visit to the aquarium with my kid, São Paulo’s heavy summer rain, the ruins of an old copper mine in Michigan, a view from the drone. I don’t plan these. I just keep a camera close.
Playing With Fire
Fire.
A fire performer moves faster than the eye can follow, so I filmed my friend dancing with fire at night, picked the frames I loved and then painted over them digitally. The series started with the dance of a gypsy, and it’s really about freedom.
Photography meets painting
Still, Not Still.
This is where photography and painting meet. Each piece starts as a photograph, and then I paint over it by hand, frame by frame, in Procreate on my iPad, until the still image starts to move.
Behind the paintings
Photography also does a quieter job in my studio. A painting is only as good online as the photo of it, so I learned to shoot my own canvases with the right light and enough resolution for print. Those files became the prints and merch in my shop.