Documentary and portrait photography, Lisbon
Mara Vidal
I photograph people in the places that shape them, in low light and without hurry.
Recent pictures
From the last two years
A few frames from the series I am still working on, and from commissions I was allowed to show.
Ladle man, Marinha Grande, 2025 
Between takes, Companhia Olga Roriz 
Low Water, the Tagus near Abrantes 
The 208 at 3 a.m. 
Lunch break, Seixal shipyard 
Before the boats go out, Peniche 
Senhor Arlindo's bench, Alfama 
Inês, after the last run-through
Series
Long stories, told slowly
Each series takes me a year or more. I go back until people stop noticing the camera.
Heat
A year inside the last glass and iron foundries of Marinha Grande. The men who still pour by hand, and the light the metal gives off.
The Floor
Eight months of rehearsals before a premiere, from the first reading to opening night. Mostly the waiting, the stretching and the quiet in between.
Low Water
Three summers on the Tagus as the river shrank, and the people who live along it. Farmers, ferrymen and a mooring chain that no longer reaches the water.
Editors
Who I have worked with
Mara came back from Marinha Grande with pictures nobody else could have made, because nobody else had spent a winter there. We ran twelve pages and still had to leave good frames out.
Teresa LoboPhoto editor, Expresso Revista She is calm, she is early, and she listens to the people she photographs. Our portraits of the new ministers were the first in years that looked like human beings.
Daniel KerrPicture desk, The Weekend Review, London
In numbers
- 14
- years behind the cameraSince my first job at a local paper in Setúbal.
- 230+
- commissionsEditorial, portrait and family work.
- 11
- countriesMost of them in Europe, a few in West Africa.
- 680
- prints soldHand-printed in Lisbon, signed and numbered.
Hire me for a commission
Editorial assignments, portraits for a feature or a family day at home. Tell me the story and the dates, and I will answer within two working days.