Sandra and Miguel are a married couple and wedding photographer duo Atmosphere. They specialize in capturing destination weddings in Portugal. In the interview with Bride Lifestyle, they share their story and talk about their dynamics when working together as a couple.

Atmosphere

Interesting facts about destination wedding photographer duo Atmosphere

Influences:

Cultural studies taught them to value curiosity, to be always open to learning new ways, and to admit that there are multiple valid ways of living, expression, and belief systems.

Art studies showed how important it is to express, understand, and celebrate being in the world in an aesthetic way.

Photographers they look up to:

Jean Loup Sieff, Peter Lindbergh, Annie Leibowitz, Nan Goldin, Greg Williams.

Film directors that influenced them:

Stanley Kubrick, Andrey Tarkovsky, Federico Fellini, Wim Wenders.

Favorite wedding venues in Portugal:

Areias do Seixo, Palácio de Queluz.

The destination they would like to explore:

Spain.

The aim of wedding photography:

Show how love and joy make the ordinary extraordinary.

How did you two come together as a photography duo?

We are a married couple, and for some time, around 10 years ago, Miguel was second shooting for another photographer. He was always passionate about photography and thought it was a good opportunity to start carving a path as a professional photographer.

Soon, he found out that it was not that challenging nor that it fulfilled his creative expectations (the photographer he was working with had a very, very traditional approach to wedding photography). He was very grateful but very unsatisfied with the results. I (Sandra) was never that interested in photography.

At the time, I was starting my PhD and had some time on my hands and a desire to help Miguel live his dream of working as a photographer. My inquisitive mind soon began to research everything related to wedding photography.

At that time, I found wedding blogs such as Style Me Pretty, Martha Stewart Weddings, Ruffled, and many others that were not well-known in Portugal. I showed them to Miguel, and we started dreaming and brainstorming ideas of how cool it would be to photograph weddings like that: with a delicate, modern, editorial approach, focusing on all the details that tell the story of a wedding day.

Coincidentally, some people we knew asked Miguel to photograph their wedding, and Miguel asked me to go with him to help and keep him company. For me, it was an intensive workshop with the best mentor I could have asked for! I never stopped photographing since then, and Atmosphere was born! We’ve been shooting weddings together full-time since then (7 years ago).

What strengths do each of you bring to the partnership?

Miguel brings his technical expertise, his editing skills, and his (much-needed) calm and good spirits (he is super focused and organised) to our partnership. I bring my restlessness (sometimes it is a plus, other times not so much) and my insatiable need to understand trends and how to innovate and stay relevant (I’m a curious person at heart).

Both of us bring different artistic visions that we always try to integrate and make them work seamlessly and uniquely.

As a photography duo, how do you divide responsibilities and collaborate to ensure seamless and comprehensive coverage of each wedding?

We attribute certain tasks and responsibilities to each other but with room for spontaneity. Usually, Miguel is responsible for the more timeless portraits, details, and decoration, for everything that asks for a more delicate approach. I’m usually responsible for candid and reportage-style shots.

But we both shoot at every situation, it works both as “human backup” (if one of us needs to rest or can’t be present at a specific moment, we both have experience shooting every type of situation and style); as a backup of the images (if we experience a material malfunction or problem with cards, we always have the extra photos from the other one); and a diverse artistic approach to each moment.

Being two of us photographing side by side allows us to try different techniques, explore creative perspectives and be bold without compromising the more classic, timeless shots that are also important.

How do you navigate creative differences or disagreements when it comes to capturing a wedding's essence?

To be honest, it just doesn’t happen with us (we may have other kinds of disagreements in the business/management side of our work, but nothing that a good conversation and a healthy dose of compromising don’t resolve). We discuss so much about how we want our photos to look like, what we want to convey, and what we believe is important to deliver to our clients that we are pretty much in sync with each other on the wedding day.

And during the wedding, we talk a lot with each other and strategize in the moment. Because every wedding is so unique, we need to be able to adapt and read the couple, family, and friends very well. Being two photographers allows us to perform well, capturing each wedding essence because we have different, although compatible, sensitivities that enrich the way we understand each day and couple.

Can you share a challenging moment you've experienced while working together, and how did it impact your dynamic as a duo?

There was a situation this summer that strengthened our relationship as a duo. A couple of days before a wedding weekend that took place out of the region we live in, Miguel hurt his back very badly, he literally couldn’t move, even heavily medicated. I don’t drive, and we’ve never shot a wedding solo. That was not a possibility because it was not a small wedding, and the couple had hired two photographers.

Obviously, on such short notice, in the middle of wedding season, we couldn’t find another photographer to replace Miguel (as a matter of fact, a dear colleague and friend of ours promptly said she’d help us but she was only available on one of the days, it was a multiple day event). We had to make it work as a team. I was afraid of shooting solo for the first time, and Miguel was feeling frustrated for letting our clients down.

It was a recipe for disaster, we were panicking, not knowing what to do and which decisions were the right ones. So we trusted and relied on each other: Miguel challenged himself to drive and photograph what he could, and I challenged myself to be ready to photograph solo if it would be needed.

We trusted and encouraged each other, and, in the end, we did a beautiful job. We believe that the constraint we faced strengthened the admiration, respect and trust we have in each other. It even empowered us, made us feel more confident, and we did a great job. It impacted our dynamic as a duo, as it made us even more proud and trustful of each other as professionals and as a couple.

Outside of photography, do you have shared hobbies or interests that contribute to your creative synergy as a duo?

Yes, we do! We are both huge cinema and music lovers (in a way, that was what drew us together as a couple). Cinema and music inform the way we look, understand, and feel, not only photography but all aspects of our lives. And photography itself is a huge inspiration. Miguel was a huge photography lover even before he became a photographer.

Some photographers who are always on our minds are Jean-Loup Sieff, Peter Lindbergh, Annie Leibowitz, Nan Goldin, and Greg Williams. As for cinema, we are very much influenced by the aesthetics and cinematic language of Stanley Kubrick, Andrey Tarkovsky, Federico Fellini, and Wim Wenders.

How did your backgrounds in culture and art studies influence your approach to capturing destination weddings?

We believe our backgrounds still live in our work as destination wedding photographers. It translates into our desire to learn and to understand how people from diverse cultures celebrate love, family, and friendship. We always feel humbled and privileged to have access to and experience different cultures in a celebratory way.

Cultural studies taught us to value curiosity as a way to deepen our understanding and respect for diversity as human beings, to be always open to learning new ways, and to admit that there are multiple valid ways of living, expression, and belief systems.

And that is the difference, the alterity, that colours the world, that makes being a human in the world a truly beautiful experience. Art studies showed us how important it is to express, understand and celebrate being in the world in an aesthetic way.

We believe that art is joy, it makes us see the mundane from a new perspective, to make the ordinary extraordinary. And that’s what we aim with our photography: to celebrate people and love, diversely and extraordinarily.

How do you stay inspired and keep your work fresh when capturing weddings in different locations across Portugal?

Curiosity and people. We always ask why our couples choose their destination and venue so we can find new ways of looking and feeling locations. We try to look at venues and all the components of the event through our clients’ eyes. That way, we always find new things we wouldn’t have found ourselves.

Even when we shoot at the venues we’ve shot before, it’s always different because we experience it in a new way: through what our couples, family, and friends value.

Can you describe a specific wedding or location in Portugal that holds a special place in both of your hearts and why?

It’s a cliché, but it’s true: every wedding we photograph is very dear to our hearts, we live them with such intensity and care that those memories stay with us. As for places in Portugal, Miguel loves Areias do Seixo, it is a venue/hotel by the sea, with a very private beach with lovely dunes.

The main building is very modern yet organic, with unique architecture. Miguel loves how the contrast between nature and architecture creates an elevated yet relaxed and cool atmosphere; I love Palácio de Queluz, especially the outdoors, the gardens with statues, fountains, and verandas that transport me to an Italian and French cinematic dreamlike landscape that I love.

Beyond destination weddings, do you have other ongoing or upcoming personal or photography projects you're particularly excited about? Are there destinations you're eager to explore?

Miguel has some personal photographic projects he wants to work on in the future, but they’re top secret for now. But we want to explore more photography as a document of reality and to venture into other projects related to literature (literature was my first passion and a constant in my life).

As for other locations we’d like to explore, we’d love to photograph weddings in Spain. We love Spain, it’s such a beautiful, vibrant country, culturally so rich and diverse. It’s inspiring!

How do you balance the demands of destination weddings with pursuing other creative endeavours?

Well, balance is a strong word. It’s not easy, but very necessary. In recent years, we’ve been realising that creativity takes many forms. Nowadays, we are investing in building quiet and calm days as a creative endeavour.

We are embracing the joy of living the small, mundane moments. We spend more time reading, playing, listening to music, going to concerts and travelling for fun. And we are discovering that living a good personal and family life is the most beautiful of the creative acts.

It was only when we started channelling our creative energies to our well-being (and stopping the need to always create for the outside world or see creativity as production) that we began to be happy and comfortable with our aesthetic language in wedding photography.

So, for now, our main creative endeavour is having fun, being happy, and healthy. And it informs in every way our performance as destination wedding photographers and how we approach each wedding.

What are your current aims or goals as a wedding photographer duo?

Our main goal for the coming wedding season is to be able to capture with even more honesty the uniqueness of each wedding while keeping our distinct aesthetics.

We are very happy with our journey as wedding photographers, we feel very much in our skin with our photographic style, and that’s something we want to keep cultivating: showing how love and joy make the ordinary extraordinary.

Wedding photographer duo: Atmosphere

Interviewed by Renāte Berga