#ignt_springfever Winner Catarina Sanches

Every Thursday we announce a certain topic via a hashtag, afterwards you’ll have 4 days to make a photo working with that topic and upload it to your Instagram using the hashtag. Who shot the best image will be featured as our Insta Fav in the following week. This weeks topic is #ignt_itsallred and here are a few rules and tips:

– This weeks goal is to find red details that catch your eye. Take a creative photo where the color red is the main subject or just subtly involved in the picture.
– Please only submit your own photographs to the project and keep them in a square format. Any image tagged until Sunday 0.00 am MESZ is eligible to be featured right here.
– If you want to submit your photo, use the hashtag #ignt_itsallred and upload your photo until Sunday the 19.04 on your Instagram account. Have fun and good luck, we can’t wait to see your submissions.

Catarina Sanches, who’s filling her Instagram with snapshots of her friends and her everyday life in Lisbon won the following feature with his picture for our last topic #ignt_springfever. Thank you for all your submissions.

Follow: @catsanches

When and where did you take the picture? Tell us a little about the idea behind it.

This picture was taken in Lisbon in the 4th April. It was Sara Chéu’s birthday (the banana girl in the picture) and she promoted a nice picnic with her close friends. I actually took some baloons and other party objects to photograph her day in a way that could make it last forever but when I arrived and saw her in that amazingly wonderful banana dress I didn’t had to think anymore: it would only be necessary herself and her little birthday cookies. She’s such an amazing performative artist that it isn’t actually hard at all to capture something amazing when she’s around.

Where are you from? How does that place influence the way you photograph?

I’m from Lisbon, Portugal, and I work in the advertising industry, so both image and words are an inherent part of my life. As a professional and most of all as a human being, I am primed to listen and tell stories and that is what I try to invoke in my photography. Whether I’m working for a brand or creating something for myself, what always influences my way of shooting is to question what surrounds me from my own point of view in order to create something in people’s hearts and minds.

Who and what are the things that inspire you?

I’ve learned that people and emotion are the only roads to foster lasting relationship with everything and luckily during this permanent search for my place in the creative world, I always had the luck of never being alone. True friendship and family are (actually!!) what inspires me the most. There are so many beautiful people always there for me and, for example, without the giant heart and helpful soul of @edzr, a designer who works with me, or the never-ending patience of my mum, this journey wouldn’t be half of what it is, and probabily that is why I aim to have human elements in most of my photography work.

Your favorite instagrammers?

Oh, that is always so hard to answer. It would be a long, long list but I will try to name some of my favorite. @sejkko, @pedrosamcastro and @teresacfreitas are a major inspiration for their artistic way of thinking photography, then there is @kitato and @mj_pereira who are always sharing their own unique perceptions of regular life, and finally @tsilvaribeiro that connects both in a very singular way. Most recently I got to know @anniset and @drcuerda and I am already a huge fan of those two!

Which Apps do you use to edit your pictures?

I always photograph and edit in my iPhone 4s when it comes to Instagram. I use VSCO and Afterlight and when I need something more precise, I use the Photoshop app.

Tell us a little about your everyday. (Family, friends, work, etc.)

I started studying Fine Arts and then Advertising. So, images and the desire of creating stories, one way or the other, have always been a part of me. During week days I always like to get up early and to do some yoga, it gives me time and space to reflect and get some balance for facing the every day life. This happens because sometimes I feel kind of crazy, you know? Besides my regular work I love to write (I’m almost finishing my book, I hope!), to paint – I have a painting atelier at home – and also to do some journalistic work when it comes to cinema festivals or theater. So, sometimes I actually need to step out of regular places and to give me total freedom to fall into imaginary places. And that is my everyday life, always sneaking around between those two.

All images © Catarina Sanches