Photographer Ângela Gaio
I love photography since I can remember.
It came alive when my daughter was born, when I was trying to freeze some unique moments such as her smiles, her first meal, her child’s plays… well, all of those little yet huge moments that last only a few seconds and will never repeat again.
It all started as a hobby, since I just took pictures of my daughter, my nephews and some close friends’ kids. However, what I thought to be only for fun, soon took a different turn and bigger proportions. The equipment I owned quickly became insufficient. The requests for photo shoots increased from day to day. It became essential to deepen my knowledge within the domain of photography.
Ironically, at the Escola Superior de Educação de Leiria (Higher School of Education, in Leiria), a Photography Course was started.I enrolled the course and attended it – with each passing day, I was more certain that photography was what moved me.I believe that no photographer ever forgets his/her first camera. I didn’t! Gradually, I started investing in equipment. I needed the equipment that would enable me to deliver my works with superior perfection. But perfection also implies continuous learning. I got the chance to join a workshop – new-borns photography – with a well-known photographer and exhibitions abroad. This learning intensified my passion for those “little photographic models”. Precise cameras require improved skills. I attended some training on this domain, since perfection is one of the demands that expect from myself.
Photography isn’t only about shooting. To photograph means to convey into the moment our passion, our perspective about the world and emotions against the scenery.
It means to capture what’s beyond our eyes. As the photographer Henri Cartier-Bresson said “To photograph means to align head, eye and hear”.
And that’s me: the one who wants to perpetuate smiles, cries, plays, tender moments of a child nestling on a lap, the happiness and complicity of couples, the simplicity of children and teenagers’ pictures that deserve to last in time to remember. As the photographer Jefferson Luiz Maleski said “A writer and a photographer use the same tools, but one describes and image by means of a thousand words and the other one describes a thousand words by means of an image”.
I’ll be forever attached to that second when that mother shed a tear of joy while looking at her baby, to that spontaneous laughter of a child while playing, to the happy moments of families or the shy expressions of the older ones at their first session.
My models aren’t famous people; they are little diamonds of whom I register forever their most important moment – their growth.
For me, to photograph is not only a working tool, but also a therapy. I’m in love with the responsibility of performing a session. But, if you ask me tomorrow what’s my favourite picture, I’ll echo the words of the photographer Imogen Cunningham: «My favourite picture? The one I’ll shoot tomorrow! »
It came alive when my daughter was born, when I was trying to freeze some unique moments such as her smiles, her first meal, her child’s plays… well, all of those little yet huge moments that last only a few seconds and will never repeat again.
It all started as a hobby, since I just took pictures of my daughter, my nephews and some close friends’ kids. However, what I thought to be only for fun, soon took a different turn and bigger proportions. The equipment I owned quickly became insufficient. The requests for photo shoots increased from day to day. It became essential to deepen my knowledge within the domain of photography.
Ironically, at the Escola Superior de Educação de Leiria (Higher School of Education, in Leiria), a Photography Course was started.I enrolled the course and attended it – with each passing day, I was more certain that photography was what moved me.I believe that no photographer ever forgets his/her first camera. I didn’t! Gradually, I started investing in equipment. I needed the equipment that would enable me to deliver my works with superior perfection. But perfection also implies continuous learning. I got the chance to join a workshop – new-borns photography – with a well-known photographer and exhibitions abroad. This learning intensified my passion for those “little photographic models”. Precise cameras require improved skills. I attended some training on this domain, since perfection is one of the demands that expect from myself.
Photography isn’t only about shooting. To photograph means to convey into the moment our passion, our perspective about the world and emotions against the scenery.
It means to capture what’s beyond our eyes. As the photographer Henri Cartier-Bresson said “To photograph means to align head, eye and hear”.
And that’s me: the one who wants to perpetuate smiles, cries, plays, tender moments of a child nestling on a lap, the happiness and complicity of couples, the simplicity of children and teenagers’ pictures that deserve to last in time to remember. As the photographer Jefferson Luiz Maleski said “A writer and a photographer use the same tools, but one describes and image by means of a thousand words and the other one describes a thousand words by means of an image”.
I’ll be forever attached to that second when that mother shed a tear of joy while looking at her baby, to that spontaneous laughter of a child while playing, to the happy moments of families or the shy expressions of the older ones at their first session.
My models aren’t famous people; they are little diamonds of whom I register forever their most important moment – their growth.
For me, to photograph is not only a working tool, but also a therapy. I’m in love with the responsibility of performing a session. But, if you ask me tomorrow what’s my favourite picture, I’ll echo the words of the photographer Imogen Cunningham: «My favourite picture? The one I’ll shoot tomorrow! »