Interview: Cristiana Morais, the role model we need!
Cristiana Morais is a fashion photographer, a creative director, and the role model we need. She bought her first analog camera and started photographing at the young age of 11.
Growing up with no role models in fashion she found her voice within herself. She shows beauty in a creative unique way, inspired by her surroundings. Her photography is characterized by a cinematic, dreamlike feel, informed in part by a female gaze approach.
So tell me, what first attracted you to photography?
What first attracted me to photography was the whole analog process. The waiting for the results, trying out different films. Nowadays it is the whole creative process. How you can show your ideas through this amazing tool, show someone’s essence in just one click. It’s just you and that person at the moment. Something that is very personal and intense.
Do you have any advice for those just starting out?
The most important advice for someone starting out that I can give is to do a lot of research, create a lot, and try to find your own visual image. Nowadays people of the same work area are more open to talking to and giving each other support. I don’t like to be competitive with colleagues who are also making their own thing, there is a place for everyone and we need to think more with a community mind.
Who are your inspirations?
My inspirations come mostly from daily life, my friends, and the people who I have the pleasure to photograph and capture their essence. In terms of work, the artists that I look up to are Petra Collins and Renell Medrano. Two female photographers that have a very particular vision in the fashion world with the scenarios they create.
What was the most gratifying project for you?
I always enjoy all the work that I do, but there is one close to my heart. It’s called “Nudes to Crush it” and is a private session that I do with clients that want to take nude shots. It also becomes a therapeutic session because I help the clients to see themselves in a different way and help them go through some body issues.
With whom would you love to work?
I would love to work with anyone that understands my vision as an artist and that is available to evolve with the work that we can create. I have been very lucky to collaborate with a lot of artists that have their own voice and do magical things with them, but an artist in particular that I would love to work with is Carlota Guerrero. Her work is amazing. She captures in a very unique way the female body with performance and nature. It is visual poetry.
What message do you want to convey through your work?
The message that I always try to show is the beauty that I see in things, my vision of what should be shown to the world and change minds (I hope so).
How did you find your voice?
I think that I found my own voice very young. I grew up with no role models and never feeling represented, so I kind of turned myself as the person to look up to. This way of thinking is very visible in me when people get to know me, it’s a different approach as we live in a society that defines unrealistic image rules to live by. For me it is important to go against that and live my life in the most genuine possible way.
From where did you order your last takeaway?
My last takeaway order was from a Nepalese restaurant called Sagarmatha Momo in Intendente, a neighborhood in Lisbon. I brought home some tasty Gyozas and Gulab Jamun, that is fried milk balls dunked in rose flavored sugar syrup with cardamom and chopped pistachios on top. It’s one of my favorite desserts ever.
What is your go-to Karaoke song?
I am not that into karaoke unless I already had a couple of drinks to lighten my shyness of singing in public, but I would choose “Butterfly” by Crazy Town.
How did you kept busy during lockdown?
I kept myself busy by doing a lot of cooking. I love to be creative in the kitchen also. I started learning how to cook very young, watching my grandmother and my mother in the kitchen cooking. One of the best memories of my childhood is helping my grandmother do traditional Portuguese pastry and looking at her black hardcover book with recipes she had handwritten herself.
What is your life motto?
Do your own thing and don’t care about what others say about you. Trust yourself.
What are you most thankful for this year?
I am thankful for trusting in my power as a woman, for being aware of the changes that I needed to make to be better to myself and the work opportunities that have appeared.
