Posts on João Pedro Almeida

Around Pakistan's North

Fri, 15 Aug 2025 17:38:12 +0000

“Those towers up there are the mountain pass,” we were told as we approached Babusar Pass. In my mind, it would be yet another mountain pass: pretty, scenic, with dramatic views of the surrounding mountains, especially since it was almost sunset and that often means pretty pictures. I imagined those towers were just the typical infrastructure you often find in high places like these, but to my surprise, that wasn’t the case at all. Instead, there were ziplines, swings, and even a Ferris wheel. All around them, food vendors sold chai, snacks, and small meals from basic stalls and huts, while all kinds of people, many escaping the heat of nearby valleys, milled about. Even a man holding an eagle for yet another selfie for who wanted to pay.

A Fresh Start

Sun, 15 Jun 2025 18:38:12 +0000

This might sound obvious, but I now have an entirely new website. Not just a facelift or a visual tweak—it’s been built from the ground up. Why start from scratch? Simply put, I couldn’t make the old one evolve into something that reflected where I am today anymore.

Without diving too deep into technical details, the old setup had been patched and updated over time, but it had a fundamental flaw: it was split in two. My portfolio/gallery was hosted on a third-party (paid) service, while my blog ran on a self-hosted WordPress installation.

…And so did we

Sun, 06 Nov 2022 01:42:05 +0000

Amplifest finally returned, and so did we.

The pandemic meant that Amplifest, an eclectic music festival, was put on hold, more than one time. Meaning that 2022 would be the grand return to Hard Club, its traditional venue in the downtown of Porto. That hiatus meant that this was a double edition, two weekends that felt like two festivals in a row.

And by the end of that “first festival” I was feeling it was something I’d like to shoot, something I feel very often in live shows. Not just the live performances, but everything else: the passion of the shows, the mood of a small festival, the constant swinging between Hard Club’s two rooms or the relaxed breaks. So I did, in the second weekend I grabbed my small camera, the one I took on that trip just in case I was in the mood for photos outside the festival (and not the most optimal gear for the occasion), and kept taking some snaps throughout those days!

Young Men’s Festival of Grijó de Parada

Tue, 28 Dec 2021 17:30:15 +0000

In January 2020 I was in Salsas, near Bragança, photographing one of the last winter solstice festivities of Trás-Os-Montes. I had been around the region since Christmas, as I’d done in previous years, and was about to return south, return home. As I was saying goodbye to André, and told him that we would meet again later in the year, he told, in a warm and direct way so typical of those from that part of the country, that he would be waiting for me and made sure to tell me that this year it would be great, that it would be really brutal (and I do not use this word in vain). I have some pre-pandemic and pre-confinement moments that became crystallized in my mind, this is one of those…

No Man’s Land

Wed, 06 Oct 2021 00:56:34 +0000

In last year’s Summer we were still with still knee deep into the pandemic (and by then we even didn’t knew it), so everyone chose to explore their backyard or to return to their roots. Myself included. One year later it feels like we’re in some kind of “no man’s land“, in between what was left of lock-down and the glimpse of normality ahead, in some ways the loosening of the restrictions meant becoming kind of lost on where to move next. Some are fully committed to reconnecting with their routines, and having to discover again how to do that in the way, while others not so much. Each one has their own pace.

Living and Breathing the Holy Week of Zamora

Mon, 29 Mar 2021 14:17:04 +0000

Maybe it’s my goth-ish nature, the gloomy side of my personality, but the Semana Santa (or Holy Week) always had a great appeal in me, despite myself being fully agnostic. It’s a season of atonement, of introspection, of penitence, the climax of a solemn season that is Lent. All this ends up in its very slow-paced, dark and intense rituals that becomes the core of every Holy Week tradition in every catholic country throughout the world, regardless of how different. For some time I had my eyes set in Spain’s Holy Week traditions, after already attending some in my own country. Despite being so close, Portugal’s neighbor tends to be much more devout, religion plays a bigger role in the traditions which leads to being lived in a much more passionate way, more committed and in larger numbers, and in Spain you really don’t have a bigger holiday than that.

A Slow Summer…

Tue, 09 Mar 2021 00:02:50 +0000

As the 2021 version of lock-down is hopefully getting closer to a loosening to the restrictions here in Portugal, and maybe trying to anticipate what my upcoming months might be, I’m looking back to the aftermath of the 2020 version of lock-down. Last year things started to open in mid-May, and after a couple of months restricted to an apartment in Lisbon it was time to go to countryside, one of the perks of having my family roots outside the capital.

The Purifying Fire

Sun, 21 Feb 2021 22:33:52 +0000

At Vila Boa, a village in the municipality of Vinhais on a slope of the Nogueira hills, the masks, bagpipes and all the things common to the pagan festivities of the Northeastern Portugal can also be found. There a festivity that initially was set to take place in the later days of the year slowly moved to happen a few weeks later, closer to the end of Winter. What was an ancient celebration of the Winter Solstice become the Carnival or Shrovetide that it is today.

Demons of New Year

Tue, 02 Feb 2021 00:50:35 +0000

There are many Winter traditions in Trás-Os-Montes that, like so many in Europe, go all the way back to the pre-christian Winter Solstice celebrations. Without going into much details, because are too complex for me to explain well enough, these are rituals that mark the birth of the new year, the time when the days start to become longer and it’s meaning is a lot related with fertility and the success for the harvests of the forthcoming year.

Festa dos Rapazes, or Young Men’s Festival – Ousilhão

Tue, 29 Dec 2020 00:11:15 +0000

On December 26, Saint Stephen day (the saint that brings this pagan festivity to the catholic realm), four young men wearing hats and colorful scarfs start the day by knocking on the houses at Ousilhão, a small village in the northeastern corner of Portugal. They’re followed by the sound of drums and bagpipes, and are welcomed by the homeowners with a table full of treats and drinks, the young men then sing and dance asking small a gift for the saint. Throughout the morning masked people wearing red clothes randomly start joining this procession, doing small pranks and enjoying the delicacies served at each house.