lucid.page Andrejs Zavadskis: Desert Light, Forbes Faces and the Covers Nobody Else Shot
Text size
Read time5 min

# Andrejs Zavadskis: Desert Light, Forbes Faces and the Covers Nobody Else Shot

European photographer based in Riga, Latvia — Europe’s most restless lens, from billionaire rooftops to desert dust.

Contents

A rooftop in Prague. A billionaire who built a real estate empire. Light that will last for minutes, not hours.

A desert in Africa. A Dakar truck tearing through sand. One chance, and then only dust.

A summit in Tanzania. Kilimanjaro, 5,895 metres, and a camera still running.

This is not a biography. These are three scenes from the working life of Andrejs Zavadskis, one of Europe’s most popular photographers — and none of them is the whole story.

Dakar Rally 2020 — photo by Andrejs Zavadskis.

# Faces that Forbes chose

Five times, Forbes USA came to the same photographer in Riga:

The pictures travelled further than the photographer: Forbes México, Forbes Česko, Forbes Italia and Forbes España ran them too, and the Remon Vos portrait is part of The Forbes Collection on Getty Images.

A business portrait has one job: to make the reader believe the person before reading a word about them.

# The magazine years

Playboy appeared in Latvian for four years, from 2010 to 2014 — fifty issues in total. Andrejs Zavadskis photographed twenty-two of them, more than anyone else. One of his models became the first from the Latvian edition to be published by a foreign Playboy; two more followed. Lingita Lina Bopulu returned from Manila as “Miss Talent”, and Zane Helda took third place in the world at the Playmate of the Year final. Then, in May 2014, singer Lauris Reiniks became the first man on a Playboy Latvia cover. The full story, in Andrejs’s own words.

Playboy Latvia, Nr. 6, March 2011 — Alīna Mičune. Photo: Andrejs Zavadskis.

# Speed is a habit

Dakar Rally in 2020. Formula 1 in Singapore in 2024. Five Gumball 3000 rallies and pages in the official Gumball 3000 photo book. Porsches sliding across frozen lakes in Swedish Lapland.

Fast subjects teach one thing: you press the shutter for where the moment will be, not where it is.

Burning Man, Black Rock Desert — photo by Andrejs Zavadskis.

# Temporary cities, permanent frames

Burning Man in Nevada’s Black Rock Desert exists for a few days and then vanishes. His portraits from it stay. In 2022 he climbed Kilimanjaro and filmed the ascent. In 2021 he worked as set photographer on the Danish film Hvidstengruppen II, and the Latvian Ministry of Culture picked one of his set photographs for its official announcement.

Burning Man — photo by Andrejs Zavadskis.

# Fireworks first

It started in 2004 with a compact camera and a tripod. His photograph of fireworks over the Riga Radio and Television Tower won first place in a Latvian State Radio and Television Centre competition.

From there: computer science at Riga Technical University, the Riga Photo Club, a Master Craftsman’s Diploma from the Latvian Chamber of Crafts in 2008, a South Wales YOURWEDDING cover, and Wedding Photographer of the Year 2009 from the Latvian Wedding Photographers Association. In March 2025 he placed third in Fstoppers’ “This Was Difficult!” contest, and for Latvia’s 2025 School Youth Song and Dance Festival he volunteered more than 7,000 photographs.

# Giving it back

He runs one photo studio in Riga, a blog he has kept since 2008, and YouTube reviews that come with the original RAW files. He also founded ProPortfolio.pro, a free platform for photographers, videographers, models, stylists and studios — where the programmer and the photographer finally work on the same project.

# Find Andrejs online

About Andrejs Zavadskis — European photographer based in Riga, Latvia, working since 2004 in commercial, editorial, portrait, automotive, event and travel photography across 50+ countries. Five Forbes USA features (2024–2026), 22 Playboy Latvia issues and the founder of ProPortfolio.pro.

End