Raquel Fidalgo // Lisbon, Portugal

More often than not, I am ashamed to admit, the last frame on a roll (image Nº12) isn’t given much creative thought. As is the theme of my project, I’m usually in some sort of rush, off to catch a plane, or catch the last rays of sunlight. This time however, I had plenty of time between this 12th frame and my shoot with my next ballerina across town. 

As my assistant was grabbing some equipment out of our Airbnb, I suggested to Raquel that we try something a little different, and make a more distant composition. Standing on the edge of a nook two stories above street level, I had a birds eye view of the street. I wanted to allude in this frame that it was not such a staged shot, but rather something more akin to a Cartier-Bresson candid.  

I quickly asked Raquel to strike an informal pose, opening the jacket to sunbathe, and then asked Patricia to play the role of coincidental passerby-with-perfectly-winged-foot. This was a nice, cool November morning, so along with providing warmth to the ballerina, the rays the sun cast made for long shadows, a constant favorite in my photography. As if almost on cue, a pigeon landed and he too, struck a pose.

The shadows prove the sunshine ♫

November 23, 2019