Pedro Jorge

My name is Pedro Jorge and I'm a photographer from Lisbon Portugal. I started my career as an actor, namely in the theater. I acted for 4 years and I loved every minute of it. On my 4th year of acting I bought my first digital camera and I immediately started to develop a love for taking pictures. As I began to explore it, I quickly found that while I loved to shoot, I was getting frustrated with my photography. I was loosing my mind trying to find my definitive subject so I decided to show my work to a friend who was an established artist and who had incredible vision.

When I finally mustered the courage to show her my work, she had some troubling news for me:

I sucked.

I'm not exaggerating. She said, and I quote: You suck at Landscapes, Street shots, Products, pretty much everything. My self-esteem was the size of a pea. "But", she said, "There's one thing you're good at!" (Insert drum roll...) "Portraits." So after that, humbly, I decided to dedicate myself to shooting people. All of the sudden, my frustrations were gone. At the end of that year, I found my true passion in life: Portrait Photography. It was also that year that I started to look at big photographers who's work I found captivating: Gregory Heisler, Joe McNally, Jay Maisel, Henry Cartier-Bresson, and many others. I became infected by their work, submerged in it. Trying to emulate their work, my photography improved more that it could have ever improved if I was doing it by myself. While surfing the web for more inspiration, I stumbled upon a name who's photos spiked my interest: Peter Hurley.

After a quick browse on his website, I knew this guy had what it took for me to up my game. With him I learned that portrait photography is more than a camera and a pair of lights; it's about people. It's about the expression of people, their individuality, their quirks and perks.

Skip forward to January 2014, when I finally got the chance to take one of Peter's workshops, the Headshot Intensive Online: I learned everything I know from that workshop. After 4 months of hard work and searching for the SHABANG, Peter gave me the honor of joining the ranks of Associate photographer for PH2PRO.

Every day of my life I keep working to be the best photographer I can. Every day I look at yesterday's work and I think it's not good enough. I'm the definition of a perfectionist.