It would reveal perhaps someone trying to untangle from a lot of confusing and heavy heritage, luggage, furniture to a lighter, simpler, more agile, more diverse, exploring other avenues of growth and contribution to the future.

“Gain perspective” photographed by Paulo Trigo.

Anyone can be photogenic with the right photographer. Some of us are naturally more photogenic but that is not what makes a photograph interesting. Light and how it reflects on your skin, eyes, hair and expression makes it a beautiful and captivating photograph and a beautiful face under bad lighting can be of no interest.

In the professional world, you can work on the subject, the work you produce, the products you make, the services that you provide and make them beautiful inside out. But you also have to be able to put that under a good light to your clients and customers, to send a message about what you are, what you represent, what you believe. You can explain what problems you are able to solve but you can do it in a million ways. Doing that in a beautiful, meaningful, captivating way, is telling your client how important, how proud, how much care you put in the stuff that you do.

Well, if I looked it up on google I guess a zillion photographs would show up of someone doing yoga or standing with open arms on a mountain or facing the ocean, at sunrise or sunset. A classic.

My photograph would be perhaps of a sailing boat in a wide ocean. You have endless destinations, you can choose where to go but you also have to know how to sense and work with the wind and have a lot of respect for the sea. You can have stormy weather or beautiful sailing days but to sail and have fun doing it you have to master the boat and keep it in balance, take ownership of your role in the crew and master yourself.

I see that as a strong inspiration for personal and professional well-being.

When I was a kid we had a small dark room where we processed our family photos. Those hours were magic for me, in the dark, waiting for the images to reveal themselves slowly in the photographic paper. In that dark room, you grasp the idea that photography is about controlling light, playing with light.

We live in a noisy and busy world and photography makes me stop and look around, pay attention to the beauty that surrounds us every day in small things, in people, in places. I love capturing moments, the diversity of life, tell a story, create an emotion. In the end, it is really about ourselves and what you want to express.

At work and life at large we are sometimes just too busy in our own affairs and devices and do not pay attention to what surrounds us, the people and the things around us. Like in photography, you need to pay attention, develop new perspectives and try to see things under a different light.

I think the same inspiration can be applied to our lives.

Well, I would not say necessarily bad ones. A few decades ago you would need expensive equipment, few people had a camera and just being able to take a technically good photograph was in itself an achievement. Today, almost anyone has access to that, we have it in our phones, in our pockets. So the challenge becomes: what do you do with that knowledge, that power, access, tools? You can take thousands of photographs and none stand out, just equal to zillions of others.

For sure you have to master techniques and tools. But that has to be out of the way. You need to train your eye and mind, to go out, learn from experience, from others, from other sources of inspiration.

When creating something, you have to be able to be authentic, something that resonates with you and have an identity, to put yourself in the body of work that you build, not copy others, regardless of what others are doing and having success with.

A drive, the will to continue in spite of frustration and having 1000 pictures that you don't like, comes from within, from your inner motivation, from belief, that you have to do it. It’s important that you have feedback from others but you cannot let that or the need for affirmation take over you or you might lose your path.

You can try to be a landscape, portrait, sport, street, events photographer but hardly a good one at any of that. Or you can find your passion and focus and get your energy from that passion.

There is an exposition at CCB from an architectural photographer named Fernando Guerra. Amazing body of work, inspirational. You can have the same building and space but a completely different interpretation, a different emotion. That depends on the eye of the photographer, the building and the space are exactly the same. I recommend that you read his bio and even check out the exposition if you can.

I think that is the same in anything that you do in your life, you have to look for what resonates with you, find what you like to do, your own passion, commit yourself, be curious and keep learning every single day.

Good things will come at you.