Leandra Benjamin
I started my career in cinema, as a stills photographer. That grounding in narrative and dramatic light has never left me. It’s still the cinematic eye that guides everything I shoot or film.
From cinema came an offer that changed everything: I became official photographer for Clube de Regatas do Flamengo, first for the press office, then for marketing.
Press and marketing are two very different ways of telling the same story. Both taught me to work fast under pressure, not just behind the camera, but in the edit straight after, the caption, the file that had to reach the newsroom in minutes, not hours.
On day one, my photographs were already running on the front pages of Brazil’s biggest newspapers. A few months in, one of my images had become a billboard at the club’s entrance.
That grounding opened doors to many interesting projects, such as: the Olympic and Paralympic Games in London and Rio, world championships in judo, synchronized swimming and swimming in Glasgow, and the Parapan American Games in Toronto, always working directly with official committees, with all the precision and deadline pressure that involves.
Through all of it, I never let go of narrative. I worked as a filmmaker on a documentary series on the World Indigenous Games, broadcast twice on Canal Brasil, and later, in Porto, directed photography for O Mapa, a Rede Globo Internacional programme that aired across Europe and the United States.
Moving to Portugal gave that documentary eye new ground to cover. It’s here that my work took on the editorial dimension that defines it most today.
A project for Visit Alentejo went on to be published in Forbes, Travel + Leisure and Travel Weekly, three names that don’t compromise on the level of image they’ll run.
I’ve photographed for the governments of both Portugal and Spain, and produced a cross-border tourism guide covering the municipalities of Alto Minho and Galicia. Alongside that, I’ve returned year after year to work for several municipalities, covered the Bienal Internacional de Artes de Cerveira, one of the most important art biennials in the Iberian Peninsula, and worked with brands including TIM and Boticário in Lisbon.
If there’s a thread running through all of this, it’s that my work has never stayed confined to one field, and it’s been recognised publicly for that more than once.
Beyond the many features in print and online, my photographs have been exhibited at Museu do Amanhã, in a government-backed exhibition at Lagoa Rodrigo de Freitas, and taken out of the gallery altogether, into Rio’s subway stations.
Sport, tourism, culture or fashion, to me it’s still the same eye, just a different stage.
And it’s that eye I’m ready to bring to the next project, wherever it takes me.