Takeuchiss: “The best of what we have to offer is within us”
Who: Andreia and Nathalia Takeuchi
What: Photographers
Where: Sao Paulo, Brazil
How: I actually had the opportunity to work with the twins when they were just starting out, back in 2013, and there was no doubt in my mind that they would reach the stars. We got together to talk about their new projects and their process as a creative duo.
What’s your story?
Andreia: Since we’re twins, we’ve always considered ourselves a “package deal”. We were born together, we grew up together, we’ve never been apart. We’re from Sao Paulo, but we moved to Florianopolis when we were about 12 years old because of our dad’s job. At first, the move was hard on us.
Nathalia: Maybe it’s worth mentioning our house in Sao Paulo…
Andreia: Yeah, we lived in a huge house, so we had all these pets and we ran around all day long, we felt very free. People assume that just because we’re from a major city, we were raised in an apartment. But we lived pretty far away from the excitement, almost in the woods (laughs). That house is very important to me to this day because it’s where I started making up stories… our childhood is very precious to me.
Nathalia: That’s another reason why the move was so tough, it was drastic. We lived in an apartment for a while at first. But eventually things worked themselves out, our parents were able to buy a house.
Andreia: And we were always together. We’ve only been apart when we enrolled in an exchange student program and each chose a different place [besides spending time in the South of the US, Andreia lived in L.A. during college and Nathalia chose London]. But in general we’re always together, we chose the same major in college. We had the same friends. Wherever one of us went, the other tagged along.
Nathalia: When we were younger, we actually mistook ourselves for one another. We were really, really young and we were in this house full of empty picture frames… we looked through one of them and for a moment thought it was a mirrored-image, but it was a real person (laughs).
So working together must have been a natural choice.
Andreia: Yeah, I can’t even imagine working alone, it would be so strange. When we’re together we share our ideas, our frustrations, our sources of joy… everything that makes working so much better.
Nathalia: In our teens, Flickr and MySpace really influenced our decision to work with photography. We would analyze the pictures, how they were edited, at that time people were experimenting with Photoshop a lot because it was all new.
Andreia: Since our older sister majored in Fashion Design, there were always magazines around the house and we grew up with that kind of content, even though she didn’t really talk about it. I think that influenced us as well.
Nathalia: At first, we shot a little of everything, but we migrated towards fashion at a pretty early stage in our career.
Andreia: We studied Graphic Design in college and that put us in touch with students from all kinds of design fields. In many cases we were invited by Fashion students to shoot their projects and stuff. But it was when we spent a year abroad that photography became clear to me as a career choice. Just being in a different country makes you want to experiment everything. I was always after make-up artists, stylists, other kids who wanted to expand their portfolios to shoot editorials. And people responded very well to this initiative, it was very natural.
Nathalia: Andreia actually travelled before me, so when my turn came, I already had my head in the game. It’s way easier to start a creative career out there than here in Brazil, I was able to build a pretty decent portfolio and came back more mature, ready to show my work.
You came back to Brazil and graduated from college in Florianopolis. When did you decide to go back to São Paulo?
Andreia: It wasn’t something that we really thought through. Our other siblings were living here and were very anxious to have us back right after graduation. (laughs)
Nathalia: After a few months, it became clear that Florianopolis was our comfort zone. So we came without any great expectations or plans to remain here for a long time. “Let’s just see what happens,” we thought.
What did the move mean to you?
Nathalia: The greatest thing about coming to São Paulo was stepping out of our comfort zone, like I said, and even in terms of jobs. We’re experimenting with video, for example, so we’re able to book clients who are looking for that. It’s like everything we did in Florianopolis… we came here to do it a little bit differently.
Andreia: We want to prove that there’s not a single way to get things done. It seems like we just learn the basics, like every shooting must have certain people on staff and… no! It’s not like that in real life. We want to experiment, we want to absorb certain responsibilities besides photography and really live this moment.
Nathalia: We’ve started working with Ford Models Brasil, shooting models for the agency’s books. We’re inviting the girls to our apartment and we don’t use flash, just natural lighting — we’ve discovered that our living room is great for that. We do the styling and the make-up ourselves, in a very clean, soft style. The agency requires that the models look as natural as possible and that just worked well with what we believe in.
Andreia: It’s great to work with the outlandish, over-the-top fashion shootings, but it seems like we’re going back to basics to show just how beautiful a natural look can be.
How do you divide the work when you’re with a client?
Nathalia: Oh, we do everything together. Literally. We even answer emails together. (laughs)
Andreia: We’ve yet to achieve an acceptable level of independence (laughs). Sometimes I go, “Nathalia, come on, we’re two people, we should double our productivity!”. But it’s so hard, we count on each other for support, we respect each other’s opinion too much.
Nathalia: When we’re editing, we split the number of pictures, though.
Andreia: Yeah, but when we’re shooting, sometimes one of us will play the assistant for a while. And then that person will maybe see a new angle or have an idea and take the camera, and we switch… that’s how it goes. We go back and forth in a continuous and organic way.
Nathalia: I don’t think people even notice it. I’m sure the clients find it funny at first, but they get used to it.
What do you do for inspiration so that you can offer something unique to each client?
Nathalia: At first we would look for references online, make a moodboard and all that. But now we follow the opposite route, we do everything to stay disconnected.
Andreia: We’re on an inward journey. The best of what we have to offer is within us, so we try disconnect and just paint, color, make art that sometimes has nothing to do with photography, but that helps us figure it out. We also avoid looking at other people’s work, because everyone has their own style, everyone is unique in their way.
Nathalia: Sometimes the client will ask for a guideline before the shoot and we’ll research for days on end, but we know that the outcome will never be like what we had planned. So we just trust that we’ll turn on that magic switch when the time comes and that everything will fit.
Andreia: We’re improvising a lot and that’s actually why we’ve been working with a smaller crew in our past jobs, because we’re able to share on a deeper level. There was this one time we were supposed to shoot outdoors, but it rained unexpectedly on that day. So we were able to book a studio, we improved the whole set and it came out even better than our original idea. We’ve just stopped resisting change, I guess.
Are you fulfilled as creative professionals?
Nathalia: I think it goes beyond that. It’s accepting that I’ll never be fulfilled. Every day I wake up and I want to try different things. Sometimes we’re super proud of a job, and then the next day we’ll look at the pictures again and see flaws and analyze how we can improve. I’m never satisfied, but I think that’s what pushes me forward.
Andreia: We’re dealing with that very well these days, and every job has its value. I don’t know how long we’ll keep doing things this way, but we’re at peace with that. I don’t know if we’re meant to stay here forever; if not, that’s ok too.
