Lisbon, Portugal

    I haven't blogged much about my backpacking trip through Europe this summer because I can't find the time to sit down and write a whole posting about the trip.  So I have decided to just post image and write the just enough of what I need to share to get the story across and be able to show the images.

     Lisbon, Portugal was the first place I arrived to when I got to Europe.  In my original plans I wasn't going to go to Lisbon, but got the opportunity to go cost free so I did and had no idea what to expect.  This was my first time in Europe and as I was walking around the airport to go get my bags I realized I was really in Europe by myself and with no real idea where I was going.  It made me excited but at the same time a little nervous.
   On the bus ride from the airport to the older part of the city where I was staying I was stunned by the beauty of Lisbon; the architecture, the streets, the shops, the people.  Not really having planned much of my trip except for a very broad outline I went to my room and went online to find out what place I was going to see while in Lisbon, when was the best light at these places, and what was my next destination after.

    I knew I wanted to capture the amazing architecture of the city and I wanted different lights; sunrise, sunset, and night.  So I made time to be able to be at those locations at the right times.

    Lisbon has the Castle of São Jorge on top of a hill and I really wanted to go check out a European castle, in fact that was on my to do list.  But to be honest with you the castle itself wasn't too impressive; what was really cool was walking up the hill, all the different streets, and the street artists that are selling the art on the sidewalks.  One of the funniest things I´ve seen while in Lisbon was a "public restroom".  It was weird to see that peeing on the side of a building was in encouraged, but later in my travels I would see that Lisbon isn't the only city that this set up is used in.

 

                           

                          

   As I walked up to the castle I met these two amazing artists; Hugo Barros, who makes collages out of vintage magazines and Manuel Neto, a street photographer local to Lisbon.  I got a few works from each of them and ask them if I could make a portrait of them.  

   

   Two of the main tourist attractions in Lisbon are the 25 de Abril bridge, that is based on the San Francisco – Oakland Bay Bridge and the Cristo-Rei statue, that was inspired by the Christ The Redeemer statue in Rio de Janeiro (Brazil).  So went down by the Tejo river to look for angles and planned what time in the day I should get there to get the shot I wanted.  Where the piers are there is a track where people walk, jog, and ride bikes and as soon as I saw the people exercising with the landmarks on the background I knew that was the shot I wanted.
    I also knew I wanted to make some street portraits like Philip Lorca Dicorcia did in his series Heads, so this would be a great opportunity to experiment with some street portraits.  I had bought a little battery pack Flashpoint strobe from Adorama for this strip, so I set it up on a light stand and used Cactus wireless flash triggers to trigger the light as people walked, jogged, or rode their bike by.   I decided to get there as the sun was setting so the sun could be a kicker light for their back and my strobe would be the key light for their faces.
    A wide shot of the light set up is the bottom and the one on top is my favorite of them all, but below are a few more.  Here's a link to another photographer in LA that is doing portraits in the same manner; it's a really neat way to get street photography that is artificially lit.