RAPHAEL MACEK
based in Palm Beach | FL
For over two decades, Raphael Macek has created museum-quality fine art that reveals the majesty, spirit, and profound beauty of horses — work held in private and corporate collections across five continents.
A Passion crafted in the SOUL
Raphael Macek was born on 11 August 1981 in São Paulo, Brazil, into a family whose bond with horses stretched back generations. His grandfather bred racehorses and served as treasurer of the Jockey Club of São Paulo. His father, a veterinarian and horse breeder, continued that legacy on the family farm in Bauru, in the interior of São Paulo state, where Raphael was raised from the age of one.
Surrounded by horses from his earliest steps — his mother recounts him standing calmly among the animals as a toddler, the horses showing the same trust in him that he showed in them — he developed an intuitive understanding of equine temperament that would later become the philosophical foundation of his art. His father taught him to see horses not as beautiful objects but as sentient beings whose grace was structural — the visible expression of thousands of years of evolution toward something purposeful.
By the time Raphael was old enough to choose a path, there was nothing to choose. Horses were already the language he spoke. What he needed was a way to translate it.
Education & Discovery
Photography entered Macek's life unexpectedly in 2003, during a formative period in the United States. Introduced to the medium by friends studying at the New York Film Academy, he recognised an immediate affinity — a means of translating the visual and emotional sensitivity he had carried since childhood into permanent form. Within two months of formal study, he won a major photography competition.
New York Film Academy
New York Film Academy
Interaction Without Interference
"A good photograph is more than a beautiful picture; it encompasses a wide range of emotions that tell the entire story of a moment frozen in time."
Raphael MacekMacek describes his method as interaction without interference — an approach rooted not in direction but in patience, presence, and genuine respect for the animal subject. Horses are prey animals — sensitive, watchful, ancient in their instincts. They do not pose. They do not perform on command.
But when they feel your energy is truthful, when you have given them a day or sometimes several days of simply being present, they offer you something no direction could produce: themselves. Macek often dedicates an entire day solely to building connection with a horse before raising the camera, earning permission rather than assuming cooperation.
This philosophy, combined with technical mastery of both natural and artificial light, produces images of uncommon emotional depth — work in which the horse appears not to have been photographed, but to have chosen to be seen. In over two decades of working in close physical proximity to horses of every temperament, he has never experienced a single accident — a testament to the reciprocal trust that forms the core of his practice.
Working with the Phase One IQ4 150MP medium-format system and printing exclusively on Hahnemühle Photo Rag archival paper, Macek treats the horse not as a subject to be documented but as a sacred, sculptural form to be revealed.
Behind the Scenes
Where patience meets precision
The Journey Unfolds
The years following his formal education were defined by intensive global practice. Macek photographed equine breeds across Belgium, Spain, Germany, France, Portugal, the Netherlands, Japan, Mexico, Argentina, Brazil, the United Arab Emirates, Canada, and the United States — building a body of work that moved progressively from documentation toward fine art.
He also trained alongside established photographers across multiple disciplines — fashion, architecture, sculpture — absorbing techniques that had never been applied to equine photography, and which would become central to his distinctive aesthetic. His artistic influences span Ansel Adams's mastery of light and landscape to J.M.W. Turner's atmospheric painting.
The decisive breakthrough came between 2010 and 2015, during sustained periods in Dubai and Saudi Arabia, where photographing Arabian horses in their native desert environment led Macek to develop the dramatic black-and-white vocabulary, environmental scale, and meditative stillness that define his mature work.
The book brought international recognition and established Macek's presence in the fine art market, where his limited edition prints are held in private and corporate collections across five continents.
Explore the Collections
Today, Macek's practice encompasses multiple collections, each exploring a distinct facet of the equine subject through a different visual and philosophical lens — together forming a unified oeuvre that seeks the same revelation through different elements.
Career at a Glance
Art Fairs
Exhibitions
Collected
Photographed
Collections
Exhibited
Macek serves as Creative Ambassador for the American Wild Horse Conservation, reflecting a longstanding commitment to equine welfare and habitat preservation. He is the founder and CEO of Raphael Macek Fine Art Group LLC and InnFRAME, Inc., a company specialising in large-format fine art photography printing.
In addition to his exhibition and publishing practice, Macek conducts a programme of exclusive equine photography workshops worldwide, offering small-group instruction alongside the world's most distinguished horse breeds — from Lusitanos in Portugal to Arabians in the Gulf, Friesians in the Netherlands to wild Mustangs of the American West.