The Basics

Hi, my full name is Alexander Almeida da Silva, i was born in England, 36 years ago, my parents are Portuguese, when I turned 6, me and my 2 sisters at the time (I now have 4), came to live in Portugal.

Why i do what i do

Its has always been in my DNA to create, my grandfather was a wood worker, always creating these perfect furniture, each one an art piece by itself, my father also stepped in those shoes, but not exclusively, he managed to work in all sortes of materials, he is what i like to call an all around type of worker.

And then there’s me, i will never be as mastered as my grandfather with wood or other materials as is my father, what I am is a very thirsty for creating, and that can translate as being as good as it is bad.

The good part, it makes me do a lot of things, makes me explore almost all ways of creating, I will give you examples of stuff I do:

1- Photographer

2 - Tattoo artist

3 - Relief print maker

4 - Caricature artist

5 - Wood worker

6 - Metal worker

7 - Painter

I don’t consider myself as a specialist of neither of these things, but I do have fun doing them all.

To explain the photographer part, i have to go back to my early 20’s, that’s when I bought my first DSLR camera, my still with me and working Nikon D40, i bought it because i wanted to capture images like the great Steve McCurry, i think when i saw the famous image of the bright eyed girl was when i decided to buy a camera, thank you Steve.

I shot on that camera for a long time, then stoped at some point to turn to other hobbies, thanks to the exploring new things side of me.

Then I met my wife, she studied photography in school, now she’s not really in to it as much but she had this small compact film camera from those times, that just reignited the photographer in me, i became in love with taking the simplest photos, bought a heavy Nikon F2 on eBay that I love to this day, thankfully that passion spread to digital (thank god, the price of film these days, Jesus!) I still do film photography, just not as much as digital.

Today I own a Fuji x100f, and to me its the perfect middle ground, it has the feel of film and all the technology i ever need for my street photography.

It became fun just walking around the city looking for all the shadows that im so drawn to.

All this is parallel to my main job, for the past 13 years i have been helping a good friend, more like family, the very talented artist Alexandre Farto aka Vhils, it has been a very wild ride that’s for sure, very proud of it.

I started helping with the production o pieces (still do when we are on a tight deadline), now a days, thanks to my love for photography i am more focused on photographing pieces, murals and all kinds of projects, even documenting the studio life, I can easily say i do what i love.