Menino Conhece Menina in LUZO, wedding photography workshop

Nowadays, wedding photography workshops take place all around the world.

They exist in all kinds of shapes and they are oriented to a broad audience. They bring together established photographers and professionals from other fields that may be tangential but have unquestionable interest to the public, such as design or marketing. They are large conferences, filling auditoriums, or small meetings, intimate and cozy.

To this day we have attended several of these workshops and we have always felt the contagious enthusiasm that raises among the participants. In these meetings we enjoy the pleasure of debating photography and we go increasingly missing the camera and craving to jump onto the street and shoot (usually these events happen out of our wedding season so we are already feeling some hangover of the "trigger"). The shared experiences, the chance to cross paths with other photographers we admire and all that we learn from them are the final boost to take off the one that will be (every year) "the year of our lives"!

Above all, what we bring from these meetings are extraordinary friendships with people who share our passion for photography, whether they are photographically similar to us or not so much.

So far we had been in these workshops always to listen but this year we went to LUZO Workshop also to speak. It took place on the 8th, 9th and 10th of April in Lisbon, organized by the fantastic Hugo Coelho and The Framers.

If we arrived nervous, terrified with the idea of so many eyes placed on us, we left refreshed and reinvigorated by this experience.

This wedding photography workshop was, at first, the chance to think about ourselves and to become aware of processes, to rationalize the mechanics we use instinctively and to verbalize the knowledge acquired in our past lives, in which we do not think on the moment of photographing but that guides our eye. As Filipa (The Framers) said during her presentation, this exercise of self-analysis and explanation brings a new awareness that, in times of creative block throughout the year, can be an instrument of self-stimulation and uplifting.

Besides, it was a pleasure to talk about our work and to feel the interest of those who listened to us. And it was not as difficult as promised. The voice shook a bit at first and our legs were quiving until the end but we believe our message has passed.

Finally, it was great to meet old friends and to make new ones. We truly believe that the sense of community is the most valuable gain of these meetings and LUZO was extraordinary at this level. Therefore, we would like to thank all the workshop participants who put a little of themselves into the construction of this community.

Thank you also to Pedro Santos and Ivo Lázaro from Ko Studio, who welcomed us into their home, for all the help and those incredible wet collodion portraits.

Ana Neves Coelho and Inês Nascimento from Join Communication, Pedro Nóbrega and Susana Esteves Pinto from Simplesmente Branco were the speakers from the tangential worlds to wedding photography who came to unravel some of the mysteries of their respective areas of action and whose tips we thank; some of them are already in our "to do list" for the next year.

Thank you to Hugo Teregeira from Fullcut for the video that we are so curious about and to all the friends who showed up for a hug.

Finally, we thank Hugo Coelho, Filipa Leite Rosa and Rodrigo Vargas for their invitation and the warm host. We loved to hear you, to know your work better, to understand the points where it is close to ours and those in which we diverge widely. It was an absolute pleasure to share this moment with you!

And now, with our hearts full and renewed energies, everything is ready: let's stop time!