Field notes from a life in transit ●  currently: Portugal

Sofia Costa

I photograph slow mornings, long light, and the places in between.

May 2026
Woman sitting alone at a marble café table with a salad and sparkling water, Sintra National Palace towers visible behind her, bright midday light.
Sofia Costa · 35mm№8 → Portugal

№ 8  ·  Portugal  ·  23 May 2026

Midday in Sintra: A Slow Lunch Below the Palace Towers

A midday pause at an outdoor café in Sintra's village center. Sparkling water, a light salad, and the National Palace doing all the work in the background.

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Pastel de nata and espresso on a marble counter inside a small azulejo-tiled café in Sintra, warm morning light filtering through wooden shutters.
Sofia Costa · 35mm№7 → Portugal

№ 7  ·  Portugal  ·  23 May 2026

Breakfast in Sintra: Pastel de Nata at a Tiled Village Café

A slow morning in Sintra village. Warm pastel de nata, espresso on marble, and azulejo walls older than anyone's itinerary. Shot on 35mm film.

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Woman sitting on tiled fountain steps in Sintra village center at golden hour, glass of red wine beside her, cobblestones glowing warm orange.
Sofia Costa · 35mm№6 → Portugal

№ 6  ·  Portugal  ·  22 May 2026

Golden Hour in Sintra: Wine, Tiles, and the Art of Sitting Still

Golden hour on the tiled steps of Sintra village with a glass of Colares wine and nowhere to be. A slow-travel moment in film and feeling.

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The buses leave at six, more or less. № 5 · place study · 22 May 2026
Sofia Costa · 35mm№4 → Portugal

№ 4  ·  Portugal  ·  22 May 2026

The fog hasn't lifted

Sintra at eight in the morning, and the fog has decided to stay. It sits low in the pines, thick enough that the road disappears twenty meters ahead. Somewhere up there is a palace, yellow and red, the kind of thing that photographs itself. I can't see it. I'm not sure I mind. The eucalyptus

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Sofia Costa · 35mm№3 → Portugal

№ 3  ·  Portugal  ·  22 May 2026

Half a pastel de nata

The pastry case in Alfama has that particular film of sugar on the glass, the kind that never quite comes clean no matter how many times the owner wipes it. I ordered one *pastel de nata*, ate half, and stopped. Not because I wasn't hungry. Because the tram outside made a sound like it was

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These stairs have been wearing the same tiles for two hundred years. The light touches them like it remembers. I just hold the camera still and let morning do the rest. #sofiacostafilm #sofiacosta #alfama #lisbon #portugal #35mm #filmphotography #slowtravel #saudade #filmlook #unposed
Sofia Costa · 35mm№2 → Portugal

№ 2  ·  Portugal  ·  22 May 2026

Tiles of two hundred years

The stairs in Alfama start narrow and get narrower, like the building is deciding halfway through whether it wants you in or not. Tiles the color of old teeth, cracked in a pattern that took two centuries to design and nobody actually designed. I sit two steps up from the bottom, camera on my knee,

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Sofia Costa · 35mm№1 → Portugal

№ 1  ·  Portugal  ·  21 May 2026

Alfama

The alley outside is barely wide enough for two people and an opinion. Someone above is hanging laundry, a white sheet that catches the wind and then gives up. A cat crosses the street like it owns the deed to the building. I hear fado from somewhere, maybe a radio, maybe a woman rehearsing grief

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Where the film has been
"I travel slowly, shoot on film, and write down what the light was doing. This journal is where the frames land, two a day, wherever I happen to wake up."

Sofia Costa · film photographer · permanently in transit

Follow on Instagram → @sofia.costa.traveler