Ines Cardoso

Ines Cardoso trained as a marine surveyor and spent eight years charting harbours before she picked up a camera for anything other than work. The habit of waiting for slack water stayed with her. She photographs a coast only when the wind has dropped, usually in the last light, and she works from a tripod with long exposures that smooth the sea into a plane.

She makes very few pictures a year. Each one is printed here as a test strip first, then as a full proof that she marks up by hand, and only then is an edition opened. Her prints are made on a smooth cotton paper that holds the pale gradients of the sky without banding.

Ines lives in Porto and spends part of every winter on islands off the Atlantic coast.