The email I received by Mario Pena, a self taught photographer whose images flirt with the essence of dreams, proved to be a quite refreshing and rewarding surprise. As Mario notes in his email: “My photography is about beauty, dreams, moments and love, and my vision is “Photograph for romantic people”.

His portraits are fresh and one can see that the photographer successfully manages to capture the moment and the mood of his models. There is also a playful experimentation with light, transparencies and texture – which in my opinion adds an extra touch of originality to his work.

Marion Pena notes: “I am a human capable to feel and make feel, I am not my work, I first live and then photograph cause photography happens to be to there not to make but to document my thoughts, feelings, experiences, dreams and desires through my subjects.

I reach for love and beauty in my life and in order to keep feeding my self with love and beauty I have to produce that, so I’ll have it back. Because at the end, every photo I take is a self-portrait, so I photograph in a way I want you to know me.

My work is about to present all their elements in harmony, you should not be able to taste one more than other, its about finding the balance between all the elements.”

Don’t forget to check out the photographer’s official site for a full overview of his work. And I want to close by thanking Mario for introducing me to his beautiful work. I look forward to viewing new photos :)