Yuliia

I picked up a camera five years ago, not knowing it would change everything. What started as a way to document weekends by the water quickly became the thing I think about first in the morning and last at night. Photography, for me, is equal parts obsession and gratitude — a way of paying attention to a world that rarely sits still.

Porto is home. I love this city — its light, its crumbling tiles, the way the Atlantic wraps around it like a second skin. Most days you'll find me somewhere along the coast between Matosinhos and Espinho, chasing whatever the ocean decides to offer. The conditions here are endlessly varied: glassy morning barrels, wind-torn afternoons, storm swells that turn the horizon dark. Every session is different.

Then there's Nazaré. I make the drive south as often as I can, especially between October and March when the canyon funnels open-ocean energy into something almost impossible to believe. Photographing big waves is unlike anything else I've experienced. The scale is disorienting — what looks manageable from the cliff turns out to be a six-story wall of water moving at highway speed. My hands shake, my heart races, and I keep shooting.

What keeps me coming back is the light. The way a late-afternoon sun turns whitewater into gold. The split second when a wave holds its shape before it breaks, and the spray catches the backlight just right. These moments last less than a heartbeat, and they're gone whether I capture them or not. That urgency is the whole point.

Over the past five years I've been lucky enough to turn this passion into professional work — editorial assignments, brand campaigns, and collaborations with surfers who trust me to tell their story in the water. But the core hasn't changed. I still shoot for the same reason I started: because the ocean does something extraordinary every single day, and I want to be there when it happens.