Photography direction

The brief (§5) says what to photograph. This note says how, distilled from the owner’s own reference, taken at Estação Tamanduateí, São Paulo: apps/site/src/photos/files/own-elevated-line.jpg (manifest id own-elevated-line). That photo outranks the moodboards. When choosing or shooting a photo, hold it next to this one.

What the reference does

• Seen from inside the architecture. The camera stands under a concrete slab whose dark edge frames the top of the picture. You are in the public building looking out, not admiring it from a postcard distance.
• Everyday infrastructure over landmarks. Transmission towers, an elevated line, a station canopy, a municipal garden with worn dirt paths. Civic infrastructure as it’s lived in, not just famous brutalism.
• Hard tropical midday. Saturated sky, crisp clouds, and shadow masses that go almost black (the building on the right). High contrast, but highlights are not blown and shadows still hold a little detail.
• Color does the palette’s job. Blue sky and green vegetation dominate. Concrete is the neutral. Terracotta paths add warmth, and one small red-orange element (the canopy) is the signal. This is the ratio the UI should copy: red is rare.
• Scale through a single small figure (the person on the bench), almost missable.
• Composition: strong verticals (towers), one long curve leading the eye (the track), diagonals in the paths. Sky takes close to half the frame: negative space as a material.
• Portrait format. Natural for mobile heroes. Desktop crops need a focal point.

Selection rules for stock

1. Prefer views from inside, under, or through a structure over facade-on shots.
2. Infrastructure and vegetation in the same frame beats either alone.
3. Hard light with deep shadow beats overcast. (Several of the current Wikimedia picks are overcast; replace them first.)
4. One warm signal color at most, small in the frame.
5. People small, incidental, never posed.
6. Natural color. No filters, grain overlays, or teal-orange grading. Correct exposure only.
7. Third-party brands visible in documentary photos are fine. Never crop so a brand becomes the subject, and never reuse their marks in the UI.

Terminal 400 (2026-10)

The site’s world is Terminal 400: an unfamiliar place embedded in a familiar Brazilian city. Imagery leans toward the urban uncanny: ordinary civic and transit spaces that are slightly too empty, too still or too large. Not horror, not fog, not cyberpunk. A bright, plausible space can be just as strange.

Add to the selection rules:

8. Prefer empty or nearly empty public spaces (mezzanines, platforms, passages, colonnades) with long sightlines and repetition.
9. Keep real signage legible when it’s part of the place; never fake or retouch it. The site’s own signs (DS plates) can echo it, as the “Passagem” sign echoes the blue floor line at Paraíso.
10. Vegetation pressing in on infrastructure carries the botanical green.

In use (all Wikimedia Commons, credited on /creditos/):

Where	File	Author	License
Home, passage	Estação Paraíso, Metro de São Paulo	Wilfredor	CC0 1.0
Home, about	Mezanine view of Sumaré Station	PreSuffix	CC BY-SA 4.0
About page	Entardecer no ICC (UnB)	Universidade de Brasília	CC BY 2.0

Research references from the brief (São Paulo Metro architecture page, FotoDoc “O Fim da Linha”, Andrea Monti “Desolation”, ArchDaily MuBE, the Pexels liminal staircase) are inspiration only and are not used on the site.