#SOOC: Isabel Saldanha x X-S10

Being Me

I’m not a veteran photographer, I did a lot of things before I decided to live on what my eyes catch. I have already worked in management, in associations, in Multinationals, in public administration, in my uncle’s condominium company, and in a pizza restaurant in London serving inline skates.

Perhaps it was this diversified path of life that took my eyes off and broadened the spectrum of society where I live. There is much beauty to be retained in the most mundane task of life. Almost everyone and everything is a scene. The portability of the machine allows me to record these details of life.
From traffic, to coffee, from the rushed crosswalk, to the collision between two strangers.

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  X-S10 & XF16-55mmF2.8 R LM WR

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  X-S10 & XF16-55mmF2.8 R LM WR

I’ve done many fashion editorials and magazine covers, but where my eyes feel at home is on the trips I take, accompanied by the stories I tell.
It is in the daily record of the emotions of my life.

The expressions of my daughters and my Gang do Pé Preto (https://isabelsaldanha.com/), a tourism platform that I created to explore places with an open heart and classify them according to the experiences they provoke us, my creative writing workshops, my books and my wine, my walks on the Mountain and my moments of pure hedonism.

I often go for walks in the forest, whenever I can, to organize ideas. It makes me feel good to breathe in a full green.

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  X-S10 & XF16-55mmF2.8 R LM WR

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  X-S10 & XF16-55mmF2.8 R LM WR

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  X-S10 & XF16-55mmF2.8 R LM WR

When I’m almost feeling lonely and complete I now it´s time to go home, to open a bottle of wine, pour myself a generous dose of captions and lose myself reviewing the photos, while I hear the words claiming attention.

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  X-S10 & XF16-55mmF2.8 R LM WR

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  X-S10 & XF16-55mmF2.8 R LM WR

I´ve been working with Fujifilm for 2 years. I felt in love with the honesty of the images I can produce. I use the X-T3 in most of my jobs and the X100F is always with me, a support, as essential as my phone, my wallet and my water bottle (may my wine).

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  X-S10 & XF16-55mmF2.8 R LM WR

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  X-S10 & XF16-55mmF2.8 R LM WR

I assume that I am passionate about photojournalism and a street storyteller. From the photographs I take, the captions are born with which I challenge the words to make a dance pair.

I tested the X-S10 camera in Azores, an amazing island, there, I photographed on the streets of Ribeira Grande, on the black sand of Santa Bárbara, at the top of the Serra das Lombadas, in the middle of a herd of cows and in my backyard. I tested it on my teenage daughter, while my boyfriend pruned the garden and inside house to see I could catch the variations of light.

The performance is more than attested, the quality, the depth of the color, the efficiency in the drawing, but to show the reflection of my work, I would have to show a little more of myself.

Unable to photograph and be photographed at the same time, I asked a friend to serve as an alter ego, to let herself be guided by my legs, to put my hat on, in the lap of my thought, on the wide wings of my words, carried by the same anxiety, the same will to freeze small particles in the depth field of big moments.

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  X-S10 & XF16-55mmF2.8 R LM WR

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  X-S10 & XF56mmF1.2 R

Anyone who watches the video may think otherwise, but I wasn’t that awake for nature. Now I make up for it whenever I can. It´s also from her that I feed my energy, and a few of my latest projects came, just by observing it.

This is a piece of myself, always regenerating.

Here remains a small and always unfair tribute to the mother of all this and to the characters who punctuate it with admiration and gratitude, absorbing the necessary oxygen to get us on the path of life.
Me and my dear friend Rita, being me.

Isabel Saldanha
PHOTOGRAPHER AND STORYTELLER

Photographing with FUJIFILM X-S10
FUJINON XF16-55mm F2.8 R LM WR
FUJINON XF56mmF1.2 R