Interiors & hospitality · Lisbon
Rooms photographed the hour they belong to.
Mara Lin photographs hotels, restaurants, and architects’ houses — mostly in Portugal, occasionally further — with a 4×5 and a 35mm body, natural light, and a delivered set that a web team can actually use.
Sinar F2 · Schneider 90mm · Kodak Portra 160 · f/16 · 2s · tungsten mix held in camera, not in Lightroom · 18 April 2026, studio test, Alcântara
The studio
Alcântara, not a white-cube rental.
The practice sits on Rua 1º de Maio, a short walk from the river and the old tram sheds. Mara was born in Macau in 1988, moved to Lisbon in 2012, assisted for five years, and opened her own books in 2017. The work is interiors and hospitality because that is what the city kept asking for, and because she is more useful in a corridor at 7:10 than on a paper backdrop.
Clients are hotels, restaurants, and architects. The six series on this site — Casa Bruma, Tuesday Table, Late Water, Lumen Stay, Rooms at Rest, After the Road — are the jobs that still get called in. Everything else lives in the archive on the work index.
Studio hours
- Monday
- 10:00–18:00
- Tuesday
- 10:00–18:00
- Wednesday
- 10:00–18:00
- Thursday
- 10:00–18:00
- Friday
- 10:00–16:00
- Saturday
- On location only
- Sunday
- Closed
Studio visits by appointment. Most weekdays she is already on a job.
Selected work
Six series, kept on the site.
Room 4 after breakfast · 1/4s · f/8 · Portra 160 · shutter half-drawn on purpose
Service reset, 16:40 · 1/60 · f/2.8 · available tungsten, no bounce
20:12, after the last swimmer · 1s · f/22 · no filter, sky held in the negative
Apt. 3B, 08:12 · 1/15 · f/5.6 · north window, ISO 100
Sintra sitting room · 1/8 · f/4 · 50mm · chair left where the owner left it
Dawn, near Portel · 1/2s · f/11 · tripod in the verge
How a booking runs
A date, a scout, then the hour the house looks like itself.
Brief on paper
Send the property, the dates you can close rooms, and where the pictures will live (site, booking.com, print). A reply goes out within two working days with a fee range, not a mood board.
Scout without cameras
One walk-through, usually the afternoon before. We mark the rooms that get morning light, the ones that die at noon, and the corridor nobody photographs. If a room cannot be shot honestly, it is dropped from the list.
Shoot around guests
Hospitality jobs run around check-in, not against it. Half-day interiors start at €1,400. A full property over two days is €4,800 plus the two-year usage license. An assistant is €280/day when the house is large.
A set, not a dump
Delivery is a dated folder: heroes, rooms, details, web crops. Captions travel with the files. If a developer has to ask which still is the first screen, the edit failed. See the handoff note.
Fees, in euros
Numbers before the date is held.
Lisbon and within 80 km. Travel and overnight billed after that. IVA extra where it applies.
Restaurant service + details, one day: €1,900. Architect’s project (empty and lightly styled): €3,200. Extra edit day: €650. Full rate card.
From clients
What they actually said.
“She photographed the house the way our guests describe it back to us. We stopped explaining ourselves on the phone.”
“The booking page used to open on a white sofa nobody sits on. Now it opens on the window at 8:12. Occupancy followed.”
“She waited until the lunch rush died and shot the table as it is: oil on the cloth, one glass still wet. That picture booked us a private-dining contract.”
“She overshoots; budget for an extra edit day. The frames we kept are the ones I still send when a client asks what the house will feel like.”
Studio notes
Written for the people who have to use the files.
Visit
Rua 1º de Maio 85, 1300-402 Lisboa.
Ground floor, yellow door, no nameplate — ring once.Alcântara, between the market and the river.
Tram 15, stop Calvário; then four minutes on foot.
Parking is possible on the street after 18:00 and on Sundays. During the week, take a taxi or the tram. There is no client lounge; meetings happen at the table in the front room or at the property being photographed.