Vidal Fotografia i Vídeo

The history of Can Vidal begins with Toni Vidal Mas, a young electrician and son of farmers who was particularly enthusiastic about anything that involved innovative and creative challenges. In 1919 he began to make portraits at home. In fact, he can be considered the first portrait painter in Campos and one of the few portrait painters in Mallorca at that time. In 1923 he designed and opened his own studio, built specifically to work with natural light but also prepared for powerful electric lights. In the same years he married Maria Vadell Ginard, who helped him body and soul in this almost pioneering adventure in the Islands.

A few years later they had a daughter, Francisca Vidal Vadell, who knew from an early age that she wanted to follow her father’s work. She married Damià Prohens Garcías, who had also learned the trade with the Palma photographer Ernesto Guardia.

The third generation arrived with his son, Antoni Prohens Vidal, who at the age of 12 was already taking photos in the studio and helping his parents with their reports. In 1972 he married Sebastiana Lladó Adrover, who was passionate about aesthetics and art, and who also began to work in the studio. Shortly afterwards, they left the premises in Carrer Victòria where his parents still worked, mainly in post-production, to open a new shop in Carrer Plaça, much more centrally located. This was the golden age of Can Vidal. There was a definitive change from black and white to colour, the technique was perfected and continually updated, etc. The team was enlarged with Guillem Mas, Magdalena Ballester and Antònia Puig, who became like new members of the family. And so, until the current era of digital photography, with the exciting possibilities that the symbiosis of traditional conceptual roots with new technologies allows, such as the recovery of photographs that have almost completely faded or deteriorated, or the 3D image, the time lapse, 360º, etc.

They have a large photographic archive since the beginning of their activity more than a hundred years ago. They keep a large number of negatives, the first ones on glass plates, a valuable documentation of customs, moments and social environment lived by the three generations.

Currently, Can Vidal continues under Antoni’s management but with the not too distant prospect of making the next generational change, despite the fact that of the three children, Damià, Miquel and Xesca, who are the fourth generation of this lineage, two, besides having breathed photography from the first breath, have achieved academic qualifications at the highest level and are professionally active in the world of photography and cinema. They also continue with the illusion of giving the same service to the community and to their esteemed and loyal customers.