Cover Nadine Lustre in ‘Recollection, Split’ by Tiago Pestana. Two moments of the same memory, altered by time and perception
Nadine Lustre in ‘Recollection, Split’ by Tiago Pestana. Two moments of the same memory, altered by time and perception
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In this Tatler exclusive, Portuguese photographer Tiago Pestana unveils ‘Ephemeral Echoes’, a visual series featuring Nadine Lustre as muse
By all accounts, a photograph freezes a moment in time. In another common parlance, it is also said that a picture is worth a thousand words. Somewhere in between those nuanced words that could possibly spring to the beholder’s mind is a unique set of memories, meanings and complex ideas that inform and colour the way that picture is processed and perceived.
Tiago Pestana has always been more interested in how moments are remembered after time passes than in documenting them as they are. “Exploring this now felt natural, as my work has been slowly moving away from representation and closer to sensation,” shares the creative who graduated in marketing and studied fashion design.
Read also: In her element: actress and eco-warrior Nadine Lustre on how she plans to save the planet
Above ‘Imprint’ | Memory leaves no scars, only traces, sensations that surface quietly on the body, some remembered but impossible to name
‘Imprint’ | Memory leaves no scars, only traces, sensations that surface quietly on the body, some remembered but impossible to name
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Through his unpublished photographic series, Ephemeral Echoes, Pestana explores the fragile nature of memory rather than treating each image as a documentation of reality. Featuring Nadine Lustre as both muse and collaborator, the body of work meditates on memory not as a fixed archive, but as something fragile, mutable and deeply personal. In contrast to Pestana’s previous portraiture and fashion-focused editorial work, the narrative of Ephemeral Echoes marks an evolution in his photographic practice, shifting from image-making as representation to image-making as feeling. “Compared to my earlier work,” he expounds, “this is less about who is being photographed and more about what remains after the moment has passed.”
Read also: Nadine Lustre launches her official YouTube channel
Above ‘Unfixed’ | An image resisting permanence, mirroring how memory refuses to stay still
‘Unfixed’ | An image resisting permanence, mirroring how memory refuses to stay still
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Front and centre of the mercurial imagery is larger-than-life Lustre, whose presence is stripped of spectacle and celebrity. Her recent return to acting (she plays the lead role in both the romance-drama series Love, Siargao, and the 2025 film Call Me Mother) and eco-conscious entrepreneurial pursuits (she co-founded a plant-based milk brand, Dehusk, with partner Christophe Bariou) are in a fine balance with her studio time as she currently finds herself immersed in her music.
Lustre’s energy influenced the emotional tone and brought a unique perspective that deeply shaped the work. “She wasn’t just performing but responding in real time to the atmosphere we were building,” Pestana recalls. Here, she is not portrayed as an icon but as a vessel through which memory, ambiguity and introspection surface. Her familiarity with the public eye only deepens the work’s tension, as viewers are invited to confront a version of her that feels intimate yet also unknowable.
Above (From left) ‘Blurred Bloom’ | Like memory, the image refuses clarity. Unfolding softly, it is shaped more by feeling than form; ‘Blue Hour Recall’ | Suspended in a cool, nocturnal stillness, the body becomes a vessel for memories that surface only in silence
(From left) ‘Blurred Bloom’ | Like memory, the image refuses clarity. Unfolding softly, it is shaped more by feeling than form; ‘Blue Hour Recall’ | Suspended in a cool, nocturnal stillness, the body becomes a vessel for memories that surface only in silence
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Shot in September 2025 entirely within the controlled stillness of a studio, Pestana transformed the space into a psychological landscape where light, shadow and gesture become emotional cues rather than descriptive tools. “I avoided clear storytelling on purpose,” asserts the cameraman. “Light and shadow were used to obscure as much as they revealed, while gesture replaced expression. The idea was to create emotional cues that feel familiar but unspecific, allowing people to project their own memories rather than follow a narrative.”
The series also speaks to a deeply collaborative moment between Pestana and his partner, artist Kim Cruz, who helped in the project’s creative direction. A painter celebrated for her emotionally charged abstractions of the female form—and newly named to the 2025 Forbes 30 Under 30 list—Cruz brought a fine-art sensibility to the photographic process.
Above ‘Holding What Fades’ | A gesture of self-embrace, caught between release and longing, echoing the instinct to preserve what is already slipping away
Above ‘Weight of Silence’ | The figure folds inward, carrying an invisible gravity. Wrapped and restrained. Intimate, heavy and quietly going out of reach
‘Holding What Fades’ | A gesture of self-embrace, caught between release and longing, echoing the instinct to preserve what is already slipping away
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Ephemeral Echoes served as the conceptual foundation for Cruz’s solo exhibition, Frames of a Memory, held in Manila last November; the artist painted the likeness of Lustre using a subset of Pestana’s work. In a shared dialogue on remembrance and perception, Pestana and Cruz blurred the boundaries between photography and painting, and between image and impression. Recounts Cruz, “Selecting just the five images [for me to paint] was tough because Tiago came out with so many beautiful images; but we both decided on the photos that would work well with different mediums and the ones that we could envision as paintings as well.”
Above ‘Afterimage’ | Light defines the body while dissolving its edges, creating a presence that feels remembered rather than seen. The gesture suggests balance without resolution
‘Afterimage’ | Light defines the body while dissolving its edges, creating a presence that feels remembered rather than seen. The gesture suggests balance without resolution
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In that space between presence and absence, Ephemeral Echoes finds its quiet power…a reminder that the most lasting images are often the ones we carry, imperfectly, within ourselves. An echo rather than a full disclosure, the images resist explanation, inviting viewers to project their own recollections, emotions and silences onto the frame.
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