Lifestyle photography is portrait photography of real life: people doing what they actually do, in places that are theirs, lightly directed by the photographer so that the pictures are beautiful without being staged. It sits between the posed studio portrait and the untouched documentary frame, and takes the best of each – the intention of the first, the honesty of the second. As a photographer in Lisbon, it is most of what I do, and it is the work clients come back for.
What lifestyle photography is
The word gets used loosely, so here is the working definition. A lifestyle session has three ingredients:
- A real setting. Your flat, the café you actually go to, the street you walk every morning, the beach you drive to on Sundays. Not a backdrop chosen because it photographs well – a place that means something to you, which then photographs well because you are at ease in it.
- Real activity. Making coffee, walking, reading, arguing about which way to turn. The camera follows what you would be doing anyway, and the photographs come out of that instead of interrupting it.
- Light direction. This is what separates it from a friend with a phone. I choose the time of day, the side of the street, where you stand relative to the window; I suggest what to do next and when to slow down. You are never told to hold a pose. You are put in a situation where a good picture is likely, and then left alone in it.
The result looks unposed because, in the sense that matters, it is.
Lifestyle, posed and documentary: the difference
Posed portraiture
The classic session: a chosen location, a chosen outfit, and the photographer arranging you – chin here, hand there, look at me. It produces controlled, polished images and it is the right tool for some jobs, a professional headshot above all. What it cannot easily give you is a picture of how you actually look when nobody is arranging you.
Documentary
The photographer intervenes in nothing. Events unfold; they are recorded. Street photography and photojournalism live here, and the strength of the approach is its truthfulness. Its weakness for a personal portrait is that truth is not always flattering, and the photographer has given up every tool for making it so.
Lifestyle
Direction of the situation, not of the person. I pick the light and the place and I prompt – "walk to the end of the pier and come back", "tell him the thing you told me on the phone" – and then photograph whatever that produces. The pictures are honest, because nothing in them was posed, and they are good, because nothing in them was left to chance.
Why people choose it
The photographs look like you. Not a version of you that was told how to stand. When you show them to someone who knows you, the reaction is recognition rather than "nice photo".
They carry the moment. A posed portrait records what you looked like. A lifestyle frame records what was happening – the laugh at something specific, the tiredness at the end of a long walk, the way two people actually stand next to each other. Ten years on, that is the part you want back.
The session is easy. Most people are not comfortable being photographed, and a session built on posing makes that worse. A session built on doing something is mostly just doing something, with a camera nearby. People relax within the first twenty minutes, and the pictures improve from there.
It works for one person as well as two. Lifestyle sessions are often sold as a family or couples product, but a men's or women's portrait session run this way is where most of my solo clients end up – a confident, natural set of pictures for a profile, a website, or just for themselves. For two people, a couples session in this style is the difference between a photo of a couple and a photo of your relationship.
What a session in Lisbon looks like
Before
We talk. What the pictures are for, who is in them, what you do together, where you feel at home. This is where the location comes from – not from a list of scenic spots, but from your answers. It might still end up being Alfama at eight in the morning, because Alfama at eight in the morning is extraordinary; but it might equally be the café on your corner, or your own kitchen with the window open.
The location
Lisbon is generous with this. The miradouros for light and distance, the narrow streets of the old quarters for texture and shade, the river for space, Cascais and the coast for sea and wind, a covered market for colour and noise. And your apartment, which has the one thing none of those has: it is yours. Sessions often move between two of these.
During
Two hours, give or take, and most of it is walking, talking, sitting somewhere with coffee. I give prompts rather than poses. I move around you rather than placing you. I watch for the moments between the moments – the second after the laugh, the glance across the table – because those are the frames people keep. You will forget the camera for stretches at a time, which is the point.
After
I edit for the light and the colour, not the face. Nobody's skin is replaced and nobody's body is reshaped; the pictures are of you, on that day. You get a gallery of finished images, sized for screens and for print.
How to prepare
Wear what you wear. The best outfit is one you already feel good in and can move in. If two people are being photographed, colours that sit together without matching are better than matching. Leave the brand-new shoes at home.
Choose a place that is yours. Or tell me about your life and let me choose one that fits it. "Somewhere pretty" is the one brief that produces forgettable pictures.
Sleep. It shows more than any outfit.
Say what you want. If there is a picture you are hoping for – you two on the tram, you alone at the water – tell me before, not after. Everything else we find as we go.
About the "perfect" shot
There is no perfect shot, and chasing one is the fastest way to a session of stiff smiles. The photographs people frame are almost never the ones where everything was right. They are the ones where something true happened and someone was ready for it. That readiness is my job. Yours is to turn up and have an ordinary, good afternoon in a city that is very easy to have one in.
If that sounds like the kind of pictures you want, have a look at the men's, women's and couples sessions and get in touch. Tell me about your afternoon, and we will work out where to spend it.