Tim Motion - ALGARVE 63
PT | EN
The years Tim Motion spent in the Algarve, in the fishing village of Carvoeiro, were undoubtedly the years in which he discovered photography. He began with a simple camera, a Ricoh Auto 35, which he used to make quick observations of the landscape. Shortly afterwards, inspired by the master Henri Cartier-Bresson, he moved on to a Leica IIIc manufactured in 1952. At the time, he was still an amateur photographer fascinated by the social and anthropological dimension of the image, with the people of the Algarve as his preferred subjects.
A perceptive eye and an ability to integrate himself among the people of the region enabled him, over the years, to build up a valuable body of photographic work. His European cultural background may also have contributed to this particular way of seeing and interpreting the reality of the Algarve. He had a mastery of light and composition and, above all, knew how to approach people without disturbing the spontaneity of the moments he captured, preserving in his images the naturalness of gestures, expressions and, very often, the smiles of those he photographed.
ALGARVE 63, the book and exhibition presented at the Encontros de Fotografia de Lagoa 2017, are the outcome of this body of work, but also of a fortunate meeting in early 2015 and of the choice of a genuinely Algarvian photography curator. Images made after April 1974 were added to the body of work produced during the 1960s. This unexpected synergy also brought to light a bleary-eyed Algarve, trying to wake up, understand and adapt to a new reality, where the emergence of tourism intersected with the abrupt arrival of revolutionary freedom.
When he left the Algarve in 1975, Tim Motion returned to London. He left photography behind in Portugal as an amateur pursuit and, in the United Kingdom, embarked on a new stage in his life, becoming a professional photographer. Jazz and aerial photography, among other subjects, began to occupy a large part of his professional activity. The Algarve acquired, and would retain forever, a singular place in the work of the Irish photographer.
It was a time of discovery. For us, who encounter these photographs today, it remains so: through Tim Motion’s truly singular gaze, we discover a region and its people at unrepeatable moments in history.
Nuno de Santos Loureiro
Tavira, August 2026
TIM MOTION - BIOGRAPHY
Tim Motion (Timothy James Glascott Motion) was born in County Limerick, Ireland, on 28 June 1936. He spent much of his youth in England, where he moved with his parents at the age of two. After completing his studies, he joined the Royal Navy, serving for two years in the Mediterranean aboard an aircraft carrier. At the end of this period of his life, he turned to painting and began spending his holidays in the Algarve.
In 1961, “by chance and destiny”, an expression much favoured by Tim Motion, he discovered the fishing village of Carvoeiro, in the municipality of Lagoa, where he would live between 1962 and 1975.
It was also during the 1960s that he began to take photographs. Life in the Algarve became the subject of sustained attention, allowing him to contribute 14 photographs to the book Algarve: a portrait and a guide (David Wright & Patrick Swift, Barrie & Rockliff, London, 1st edition, 1965; 2nd edition, 1971). He also wrote Appendix 3 – Bom Vinho do Algarve for the same publication. In 1967, he opened Sobe e Desce, one of the leading nightclubs in the western Algarve, and began photographing less frequently for lack of free time. He later returned to London, but never lost his connection with the Algarve, which he continued to visit regularly. In 1978 and 1979, he returned to photographing the region, this time for the magazine Algarve Life. Issue No. 2, published in November 1978, featured “Algarve People, seen by the famous photographer Tim Motion”, while issue No. 3, published in March 1979, included “Manuel Guerreiro (Manolo) a jazz man of Algarve”. In 2007, he presented some of the photographs he had taken in 1963 at the Algarvida Art Gallery, on Rua do Barranco in Carvoeiro.
From London, he developed a professional career specialising in aerial photography, working from helicopters, small aircraft and hot-air balloons. He contributed photographs to the book Tunisie... La magie du Sud (Abderrazak ben Ammar, Simpact Editions, Tunis, 1996). He also photographed numerous jazz and blues performances and musicians, an activity he began in 1971 at the first Cascais Jazz Festival. Luís Villas Boas, the festival's director and a friend of Tim Motion, secured him a photo pass card, allowing him to photograph Miles Davis and other musicians performing at the festival. Part of this work was brought together in the book Jazz Portraits, an eye for the sound – images of jazz and jazz musicians (Smithmark Publishers Inc., New York, 1995).
In 2015, once again “by chance and destiny”, he came into contact on social media with Nuno de Santos Loureiro, then director of the Encontros de Fotografia de Lagoa. Their exchange of messages led to the publication of the book ALGARVE 63 (Municipality of Lagoa & University of Algarve, 2017), presented on 14 July 2017 alongside an exhibition of his photographs at the Parque Municipal do Sítio das Fontes, in Estômbar. The same exhibition was subsequently presented at the University of Algarve Library, Gambelas Campus, Faro, in early 2018, and at Pavilion J of the Galeria da Mitra in Lisbon in September and October 2026, on the initiative of the CC11 Association.
Tim Motion died in London on 2 April 2026.
