Pietro Cardoso is a Unit Stills photographer based in London (UK). He possesses that great combination of passion and intuition of a real artist, and a natural gift for being completely "invisible" on set, which gives his photography a real spontaneous feeling.

Pietro was introduced to me by a mutual friend, to get some help in finding a more definite direction in his photography and in building his brand.
The material that he sent me for a first evaluation was ranging from Travel and Documentary Photography to Fine Art, from Street Photography to Studio Portraits...In addition to this, he had several projects he had made on commission on Film sets, as a Unit Stills Photographer. It was a lot of material, with countless possible directions, enough to feeling lost.

After a chat on Skype, we decided to start with a first, comprehensive, Photography Assessment of all his material, aiming to:

1.  Clarify his objectives, identify his strengths and weaker points, imagine possible targets
2.  Find a consistency of style and content through all projects which could characterize his profile as a photographer with a precise visual brand and photographic niche
3.  Provide support and guidance for a short-term marketing strategy structured on his potential.

As it often happens, the results of this in-depth Assessment were surprising; some of the “Dreams” turned out to be not exactly in tune with his real strenghts, while other aspects that Pietro had taken for granted or considered less appealing, started shining in a new light.

This phase is a difficult one, for a photographer; it is like watching oneself in a mirror under a spot-light, it takes courage. Everything in the mirror is magnified, some details suddenly appear in all their beauty, some others are not so flattering...

Pietro took the outcome, which was probably very different from what he expected, with utter grace, following me in the second phase of our work without flinching. (I can now tell you, Pietro – your “leap of faith” was huge and so difficult to take!)

The second phase of our work was presenting Pietro to the world with a brand new website. Of all the different types of projects Pietro had showed me, of all his different researches, successes, and approaches we decided to focus on one single field, putting everything else (and dozens of great pictures) aside. Not an easy decision to take.

For his great instinct in capturing real Action, Fun, Behind the Scenes moments, for his fantastic use of lights-on-site, and his great Portraits of Actors and Crew, both in color and B&W, we chose Stills Photography as the only focus for his website: the cinematic mood that Pietro had been able to give to his work was absolutely consistent all through, and had a very natural feeling about it, very appropriate to the context.

The new website is both an artistic presentation of his best work and our short-term marketing strategy, which will help him funding further personal projects and research.


Pietro has been so kind to share his thoughts on our work together:

"Working with Raffaela was a real revelation.
Despite my young age, our collaboration had from the start a very professional character, made pleasant by her sympathy and friendly approach.

Her critical eye showed me my work in a completely different perspective, which, however, Raffaela has always been willing to discuss together. Her advice and photography tips have helped me to progress considerably, and showed me a way I had never considered before: when she told me that my strongest potential was as a Unit Stills Photographer, she also showed me the all the good work done so far, and I found this very encouraging.

Both from an artistic and from a technical point of view she gave me great advice that made me feel a lot safer when I'm on the set, and the feedback she has given me has been very useful for assessing the type of images I should focus my energies on. "