Wedding and Lifestyle, Algarve, Portugal | Matt + Lena Photography » Husband and wife wedding photographers based in Algarve, Portugal, creating moment driven images that capture the spirit of your day.

Gale Beach

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Gale Beach is located slightly west of Albufeira. It’s got ideal surfing waves for this time of year. We fell in love with it the moment we saw it, it was vast, and beautifully lit by the evening sun. On the left the sand and the water shimmered into the distance, on the right was a twisted pathway of red rocks, shrubs and flowers, and a single cafe, stylish and trendy. There are countless of beaches in the Algarve similar to this one along the south and the west coast and we tend to fall in love with nearly all of them! I find beaches magical in the way a single grain of sand can catch the light in such a way that can make you feel like you’re looking into a dense universe scattered with stars, or the way the sound of the waves can make you melt into a calm and tranquil state. Perhaps I romanticize too much about the beach but I’ve always been drawn to it and I perfectly understand why one dreams of getting married on a beach, it’s just so perfectly designed for romance. The last few shots were from our drive back home, a low fog was lifting from the ground as the temperature changed so drastically from a hot day to a winters night. The view only lasted a few moments before it got too dark to see.
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Kerry + Luis

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Last week our super talented friends, Kerry and Luis invited us to a cozy little cottage nestled in the Alentejo region of Portugal. We hopped on a train in Portimao and four hours and three train layovers later we were in Evora. It was a spectacularly scenic journey. Our friends picked us up at the station together with Ze, the cutest little dog ever. We spent three days at the cottage. During the day we were always on the road, driving from one place to another, marveling at the beauty of the region, the endless groves of olive trees and the historic Roman aqueducts that ran along old town walls of Evora. We hoped for the rain to stop but it was not meant to be. Kerry and Luis took us to this lovely little farm house in the middle of the field that was perfect for a photo shoot. We took an umbrella each {Kerry and Luis have lots of umbrellas in the back of the car, a professional precaution of wedding photographers} and ventured towards the farm dodging the mud puddles along the way. Ze was estatic. One day we hope to go back and experience this place drenched in sun light, to get a little more of a sunny Portugal and a little less of a rainy England feel. Despite the rain it was a great few days, and we must mention Luis’s Paella, it was the most delicious Paella we ever had! It rained for the whole three days, the sun finally came out as we were waiting for our return train to the Algarve, of course.

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Behind the Scenes of Kerry + Luis {a rainy day in Alantejo }

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Eva + Chris

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Eva and Chris are wonderful friends of ours and have been for many years. We all met while working on cruise ships, Eva as a fellow photographer and Chris as a Third Officer {he drives the ship}. They hadn’t yet decided weather to have their wedding in Eva’s Poland or Chris’s England but we were all together on a contract in Hawaii and it was a pretty perfect place for an engagement shoot. We decided to shoot on the island of Kauai, the “Garden Isle”, in the port of Nawiliwili. We spent the day shooting and enjoying the beach and the waves. The shoot was fun and spontaneous, Eva has such a fun and energetic spirit that more then made up for Chris’s obvious awkwardness in being in front of the camera. The chemistry they shared was of a couple destined for each other. Somewhere amongst the photos I couldn’t resist including Matt’s hanging off the tree demonstration.

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The Fisherman in Sagres

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A few weeks back, when our friends Luis and Kerry came to visit for a few days, we took a road trip around the Algarve. One of the stops along the west coast was a place called Sagres. It was very picturesque with dramatic cliffs all along the coast. Along these cliffs, right on the edge, were fisherman with their lines cast over into the rough seas underneath. No harness or anything at all to keep them from going over the 70 meters drop into the rocky shore of the Atlantic, it was alarming to watch as one fisherman edged closer and closer while pulling on the line, it seemed he had caught something.

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Burgau, Algarve

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Burgau is a little old fishing village, located in the Algarve, municipality of Vila do Bispo, near Lagos. In the summer months crowds are drawn to this pretty and lively little place and its small beach, Praia de Burgau, but during the winter it is nearly deserted except for the few locals. The beach and the walkway leading to it was sprinkled with boats and fishing nets, all seemingly abandoned, waiting to be photographed. Suddenly we saw a couple of fisherman spring into action as if the sea called them out with promise of a great catch. We stayed long enough to see them disappear into the horizon together with the sun.

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