It's that time of year apparently calmer in this social bustle, but that is one of the busiest and decisive ones at the backstage.
We conclude we photographed much, too much, and now we must catch up on the stories, the smiles.
It is an additional effort wanting to do everything well, not resting in the shade of a better job and always wanting more and more.
What remains is very little time for life, but this is the way we feel alive.
The places we don't know are added up in the faces we photographed.
There is always a pair of open arms here, waiting to welcome each and every one of the stories. No matter the place from where they come from or the landscapes in which they have lost their eyes. Whether the trip was long or the return doesn't take too long. It matters these moments, today only a handful of images, tomorrow the best of all the best memories.
This family is just a page of the story. A shoot booked to document the meeting in one only place of a family that made home all over the world... Dubai, Lebanon, Mexico... all together in Lisbon. Coming from places where we have not yet delighted ourselves! So many places.
Dawns.
A less shy sunbeam appears on the horizon as we won the kilometers that separate us from the place of our shoot.
The streets are calm and silent, confusion remains asleep, left to the heat of the dreams and the sheets.
Cascais never disappoints and, if we want it just for us, it is imperative that we dawn before dawn, that we forget sleep and laziness and roll up our sleeves for an exceptional shoot, for the best of all ways to celebrate a wedding anniversary: together in Cascais and keeping memories that will last forever.
There are whole oceans that separate, that fit around islands and overflow in paradisiacal beaches, impossible to swim to reach the other shore.
But the oceans also join, like an incredible bridge reflecting the the sky that takes us out from here to the world... or just to Brazil.
And when an entire ocean conspires to join what could not be otherwise, let us not rise many waves!
A bridge that are we in our ties, affections, in the hugs, the smiles, in the afternoons with friends on an esplanade on the sand that the ocean comes to touch.
The day started with sun and blue sky even though that, for someone, the night may have been stirred trying to calm nerves and excitement.
In the mountain, however, an incredible hat of clouds was already installed to stay. At the top, with a privileged view for so many and such good moments.
With it the fog that leaves fantasy gain wings, the mystery feeling invade us, the chill in the stomach, the butterflies, the excitement.
Sintra, the perfect stage for all the stories but where only the special ones form light from the mist.
And when there are already little or nothing that surprises us, here is a wedding proposal turning things around.
Not by the location, by the incredible light, by the people who treated us so well, but by the unexpected situation, a kind of inverted proposal that makes it much more magical and intense.
Who planned this wedding proposal was Roshni! And for us there is no better assurance of someone who knows exactly what she wants and how she wants it, to make the world run and move forward.
And it was quite a surprise!
We believe that if she was nervous, we were literally in the clouds. The only person completely oblivious to everything that was about to happen was Kevin, relaxed on an holiday tour of two and discredited when Roshni surprised him with a ring that she herself had brought!
What a woman!
I write-erase-write again-erase one more time-rewrite... there are no words to describe this day and if I find one it seems too small, not enough.
From this day on nothing changes, but nothing will, ever, be the same!
Henceforth the journey is even more together, on an emotional and convinced "yes, I do" where neither voice had the courage to fail.
There are books from which we don't know the cover, that we never heard about but that we take home, and that we barely opened the first pages and are absorbed by the story, we lose ourselves in the words, page after page, and we can not stop until we reach the end.
There are stories that take us far away, to a physical space a few hundred kilometers from home, others, like the one we tell today, that more than put us on the road, elevate us to a whole new dimension.
This was the day we met Maria João and Pedro, if the voice was already familiar, it also flew over never ending kilometers, in a virtual conversation that put us on the same road, all the rest was unknown and an entire book to read.
The story that today we leaf through, leaving uncovered another page, brings usalready familiar faces and smiles.
It all started a few years ago at Hotel da Estrela, where we photographed the day when family and friends were invited to share the joy of Helena's christening.
Then we revisited the story a little further ahead, with a sunset that never ends, in a beautiful garden in Paris. Long before Helena even dream that she would play one of the most important roles ever: the big sister one!
The best of August is not the sun, the heat and the (overloaded) beaches of Algarve.
The best of summer are the long days, when the sun lasts longer and delays us with the feet on the sand, the light clothing and spirit and the joy of a never-ending light.
Even better is to be able to return to the origins, to our places, family and friends and the tightest hugs, warding off any winter within us.
And, taking the risk of falling in the weariness of repetition, better than meeting new faces and new stories, it is always to review the ones we are already know, those who are already our own history, written with wide spaces in different places, at different times, when children have grown up, when dreams are different, but the joy of living is always the same.
We are in the middle of the high season, in the heart of summer that hits so strong that raises the temperature.
This story was told in full summer mode, a hot day with a burning sun and a stubborn breeze in bringing us the smell of sea and pine forest, but never in refreshing us.
After the agitation of the preparations, the nervousness moments before entering the church, these moments of two (actually four!) are a kind of balm that invigorates us to move forward with a new energy to the party that follows.
There are many families who are repeaters here. Never from material or disciplinary faults, but because there are so good subjects that it feels good to study and know them at the tip of the tongue.
We met Vicente on a Christmas mini-shoot, so tiny.
We have overcomed the constraints of the first encounter with machines and lenses in the middle and we marveled ourselves with this family in a faster and short record that left us water on the mouth for more, much more.
Weeks pass by without more complete stories finding their way to the blog.
The truth is that the time we choose and prepare the images to show here and the care and affection that we want to leave printed on every word written, turn out that only now the first jobs of2015 (yes, you read it well, 2015!) are coming to the blog.
We would like to promise more attendance but there are so many stories to tell!
And there is the constant balance between the humanly possible and the will to be present everywhere, whenever needed.
We are increasingly grateful for the people who cross our path, whose stories mingle with ours, in a combination of good times and memories of those that we keep forever.
Then there are friends of friends who come by the hand of other friends, who call us to take part in a special day and make us feel well and at home, comfortable and accommodated into the family's routine and that, in the end, invite us to stay.
We always want to photograph at the best of the best places with the best possible light.
We always want the places, the stage of your story, to be special or have anything to do with you, with some special moment, with old memories.
When we knew we were going to shoot Adrienne and Wes at Belem Tower, on a day promising sun and heat, we tremble on the inside.
How many people would be there, getting to know the place, enjoying the view of the other side or waiting for the amazing setting of the sun that did not disappoint?
Christening days are also family days!
May the party be bigger or smaller, it's all about the purpose, the reason that leads us to be, together, in that day, that moment, that place.
The day we met João and family was the christening the day. We were welcomed by the big brother Gonçalo who opened up the door and the smile, who fled from the photos but from whom, in no time, we win the confidence with unfulfilled promises of a ball game on the beach.
João was always in good mood and never cried, not even when the cold baptism water helped to cool the warmth coming from the outside.
The weekend was intense.
The sun shone in all its splendor, the temperature rose, many people searched for the beach as a backdrop for one more saturday.
Here, although the beach was also a destination of choice, there was a good story to tell.
The shiver down the spine from a dive into the cold ocean was replaced by the shiver of the lived emotions.
Only a few days had passed since the first shoot and already a new chapter of this story was opened at our eyes, a chapter promising many more happy moments.
We have been walking up and down the mountain, in the certainty that the mountain air is the best and that, above or below, there are still many stories to tell there.
Although summer, the wind blew strong, misaligning the hair, billowing dresses but not making us give up of the company and of another good story to tell.
This one came out full of other places, different and far away countries where it lives.
Professions in common and a thousand and one projects and dreams mixed with fun and the mother's lap, the favourite one.
Because the sessions prior to the day of your wedding does not necessarily have to be with only two. If your love already bore fruit they are very welcome to our sessions, a living witness that you just make sense so, together.
And if they are sweet, with big eyelashes, full of energy and good mood like little Mathias, even better!
We are counting the hours that separate us from another chapter of this story!
It's a see you later, like so:
We often exclaim the places, the breathtaking view, the light ... but are not always the places, the view or the light that tear us sighs, are the people.
It's the people who make the places. Are the stories that give them life, color and salt.
Peninha is an amazing site asking for a story to match.
Neither more nor less!
And Sintra is in their blood, in the place they chose to enhance an happy ending in this story that has barely begun.
We sigh just thinking about the day ahead, such an amazing place, a story that remains even if the wind take away a few words and the conversations flew off to other places.
