Vila de Rei through the lens of photographer André Farinha
André Farinha is one of the most promising Portuguese landscape photographers, having seen his work already recognised internationally. Living in Vila de Rei since he was a child, he brings us here his view of the territory of what is the most central municipality in Portugal. André Farinha’s night landscape photographs are veritable poems. Searching Life, the one with which in 2015 he competed in the Sony World Photography Awards was considered by the prestigious Huffington Post as one of the 15 most stunning nature photos of that year.
Photography appeared late in the life of André Farinha, 26, but when the passion for landscape photos arrived it came to stay. Born in Lisbon, he moved to Vila de Rei at the age of 9 because of asthma. His family then moved to the centre of the country, where he had roots, and the disease stayed in the capital and never bothered him again.
At 18 he volunteered for the Air Force to become a meteorologist and as a weatherman he lived in the Azores. It was there that photography caught André Farinha, so much so that last year he decided to become a professional photographer and traveller.
In October he took a Kangoo van and hit the road to Sweden. In 9 months he travelled 40.000 kilometres and visited 21 countries. Basically, he took stunning landscape images and prepared itineraries for future photo trips. And as he cannot stand still, in October he is preparing to set off again towards Holland. If you start seeing photos of Morocco on André Farinha’s Instagram account, it’s because André Farinha took his motorbike to North Africa.
When we ask him to define Vila de Rei he cracks a smile and says: “Vila de Rei is my home!”, then, more seriously, André Farinha says: “We don’t have the best but we also don’t have the worst. We have very interesting places that are worth visiting. The potential is here but it has to be better explored”.
It is a privilege to have his photos and texts in Portugal de Lés a Lés. It is worth getting to know Vila de Rei through the lens of one of the most promising Portuguese landscape photographers.
André Farinha has the word:
Heading North

WOOOW” is what most people say when they first see a Startrail photograph. Startrail is nothing less than a long exposure photograph that captures the rotation of Planet Earth, thus creating a drag of the stars changing position as the blue Planet spins on its own axis at 1700km/h.
Have you ever heard of the North Star? The one that the sailors of Camões’ time used as a point of orientation? That star is represented in this picture, it is the only star that never moves while our planet rotates
It is incredible to look at the same star that those discoverers of ours used as a means of navigation, so rudimentary at the edge of our mobile phones with GPS.
Here in the most central point of the country, where we can almost observe the curvature of the planet in a 360º angle, we had the opportunity to photograph the rotation of the Earth during 1H50.
This is a kind of photography that requires some experience and a lot of patience, patience that one acquires by living away from the stress of the big metropolitan centres.
To the centre, cheers 🙂
Hypnosis Fire

What is the biggest advantage of living in the centre of the country?
Well, this is a question that for many may be difficult to answer but for me it is as easy as “Peace of body and soul”.
It feels so good to live close to the one we call Mother Nature, to value all the living beings around us, to fall in love with the sound of the wind and rain, to be able to observe the night sky as if we were outside the atmosphere of our Blue Planet, without filters, without worries.
This was a night when some of those fortunate people who live in the centre of Portugal decided to sleep even closer to Nature, they lit a fire next to a stream that flowed by there and lay down with their heads outside the tent. For some people it’s necessary to “count sheep” to fall asleep, but for these young people it was enough to count all the shooting stars they saw streaking across the sky.
Just a Kiss and Say GoodNight

It was here, at the Country’s Geodesic Centre in Vila de Rei, as I was returning home after a week of work in the capital, that I began to glimpse with the falling of the day some intense colours in the sky, also imprinting them on the ground and everything in it.
It was one of the most beautiful and intense sunsets I have ever seen, creating an extremely dramatic sky and super appealing for photography.
As I reached the top of the highest mountain in the county I began to look for a frame that would captivate me and it was then that I discovered that the bench and its wooden slats would give me a magical frame for this scene.
The planks of the bench give me the necessary lines to guide the viewer’s eye to the geodesic marker and so diverge into the dramatic sky.
It feels so good to live in the centre!
Night Explorers

It was on a cold winter night, when the county’s waterfalls show all their brutality and splendour, that me and two other friends decided to walk part of the waterfalls trail under the intense light of the full moon.
A good night of photography is never a good night unless something unforeseen happens, and it was while going around the small lake that forms at the end of the waterfall that, as I placed one foot on a small tuft of grass, I slipped and fell into the shallow but icy waters.
Luckily all the photographic equipment was protected, however I, little was the clothes that were not wet
I took advantage of the fact that I was soaked to the bone and looked for a perspective in the water that would allow an unusual look and that could portray all the surrounding scenery of this night.
It was then that I found a corner that would allow me to capture the waterfall, the moon, some stars and my friends glimpsing the force with which the water was falling.
During this process I put a torch on their backs to highlight them in this dark environment and create a good dynamic in the photo.
Old Rocky Village

When people ask me which village I like the most in the municipality of Vila de Rei, it is impossible not to think and talk about “our” Xisto village, the village of Água Formosa.
This is a harmonious place, of peace and nature.
There we meet genuine local people, who know every nook and cranny of the central region, who, even not knowing us, certainly know our grandfathers and great-grandfathers and who are proud to live in the municipality that offers the best quality of life in the Castelo Branco district. My aim in this panoramic photograph was not to portray the famous houses of Xisto, which is a Natural Heritage of Portugal, but to show a general view of the village, conjugating the starry sky that we can find there, with or without light pollution.
In fact, any kind of pollution in these parts is seen almost as a myth.
Paths of Milky Way

The iconic bridge of the 3 counties.
This Roman bridge symbolizes the border between the Vila de Rei, Sertã and Mação, a common and touristic point of these municipalities.
On this summer night I decided to leave home, alone, as the clock was already ticking past midnight.
On the side of the most central municipality of the country, I photographed the bridge with our Milky Way “flying” over it, with all its mysticism and brightness, a sky where the dark does not prevail, because here I could observe the tiniest stars present in our galaxy. This night I proved that we live in a space where we are nobody, we are part of a much vaster system than our minds can imagine.
We are so little but at the same time we are so much.
Well said be that stardust that made life out of us.
The Dusk

Legend has it that somewhere between Penedo Furado and Lapa do Aivado a beautiful golden Calf is buried.
This late afternoon I did not go in search of the Golden Calf but of a light that reminds me of one of the most precious possessions on our Planet.
This is the gold I prefer to chase, that golden light that the sun produces in our atmosphere early in the morning and late in the day.
It is so relaxing to be able to be isolated from the world, to feel the wind across your face, almost as if the Planet were breathing, to see the birds flying, the clouds changing, the sun warming us with its last sun rays and painting the sky with bright colours.
I wish I was as good a painter as he is…
Water Don’t Stop to Breathe

This is a place that for me, as a photographer and mainly as a citizen of Vilarregense, has a special touch.
It is one of the most emblematic waterfalls of the municipality of Vila de Rei, which is located near the village of Escalvadouro.
This waterfall, with about 10 meters high, offers countless perspectives, some of them difficult to access but with an incomparable level of satisfaction.
For the photography I used a Variable ND filter to achieve a fluid movement in the water, creating the famous “princess hair”. This is a technique widely used by most Landscape and Nature photographers.
(The explanatory texts of the photos are all by André Farinha)