Friday 16/09/2011

Last set of pictures on Brazil shot with the Minolta 7s rangefinder. It took longer than I thought to develop and scan the negatives. Partly becasue of my procrastination and partly beacuse of a busy summer.  I have to thank Luca Farinelli for the offering of his scanner and the time he put in it.

Anyway here are the pictures.

Back at the beggining of the 1 month trip. At Heathrow Airport. Funny scenes at like 5 in the morning before grabbing a coffee. The bestthing was that  there were no idiots complaining about getting their picture taken.  As a sidenote I think it was not such a bad idea to buy some colour rolls and bring that analogue camera with me.  The focussing patch is not very accurate and the way of working changes a lot from the  digital SLR I normally use but I am generally happy with the result.

While most people seemed to sleep in groups,  he was the only one alone. I supose the seats were too hard for him and his bag offered as much comfort as possible in such situation.

People were sleeping everywhere, even at the gate minutes before catching the plane.

In Porto  we  recieved our first Portugese lessons during the one hour wait to catch another plane, this time, to Rio. If you saw a very characteristic Portugese man alone in an airport, with no drink while the light  that enteed through the airport windows reflected on the newspaper iluminating his face, wouldn’t you take a picture?

On the way to the gate. Nothing interesting happened during the flight. It was my first long distance flight which I spent watching movies and getting free drinks. What a luxury!

At the flat in Rio. By the way, this is Roy, Heather’s dad.

Having an interesting conversation.

Filipe. I took several pictures of him during that month in which, after taking his picture, he trid to see the image at the back of the camera. It was actually quite cute to see his reaction when explaining to him it was a analogue camera.

The weather was so nice in Rio I completly forgot it was winter. Filipe messing around before going to school.

This makes me wonder why multinational companies spend so much money on advertising campaigns if  a single guy and some stickers can do a good job to attract customers.

After dropping Filipe off at school Heather and I went for a quick walk.

People in Brazil tend to carry their dogs, beacuse for what I have been told, the streets are too dirty. I actually saw dogs wearing little dog shoes which was quite funny. Another risk you run in Rio is getting serious burns when stepping on a manhole. Gas and electricity supplies run through the same pipe lines which causses explosions randomly or when walking on them. No one wants to take their dog for a walk and come back with just a lead…

In some streets the forest seems to swallow the city.

Near Rio Sul shopping centre.

Last shot of the day at the beach. Not the best idea for “gringos” to go around Copacabana at night.

Next morning a self portrait to finish the roll. Not being able to see the pictures made me unsure of the results I was getting, so I wanted to develop the first roll in a local shop just to make sure.

Many mornings were spent in bars like this one to enjoy a coffee and little pastries called Salgados.

Going for another walk. This time towards Ipanema. I was actually glad to see this one in focus as I thought I missed it, but sad to see I framed so poorly.

We stumbled accross a Billabong surf competition.

I could have hung this picture on my wall,  if this guy hadn’t have been sticking his ass out on the bottom right of the image.  In the background Leblon and the favela of Chácara do Céu.

The entrance of every building had a fence, like the one in the image, for security reasons.

Copacabana beach and Pao de Açúcar in the background.

A small detail on Copacabana beach.

Buying coconut water, to which I got addicted while I was in Brazil.

Next morning.

Something about firemen being arrested on the news. Nothing that matters for this blog anyway.

All my life I have thought that escalators eating shoes was a myth. Not in Brazil.

In Lapa.

Aleixandre or also known as serious fella.

In a “pay by the kilo” buffet that was actually not that good.

After a pillow fight.

Next day on the way to Centro. During that train ride I was told for maybe 5th or 6th time that I had to be careful with my camera. At the end of the day I paid 12 euros in a market for it. It would’t have been a great loss.

Centro.

Union member.

From Centro we caught a tram towards Santa Teresa. People were getting on it as we went along.

We had some nice lunch in a very nice cafeteria with a terrace, nearby.

You expected not to see her?

We had some lovely coffee in a book shop/ cafeteria called Largo das Letras.

Nice views.

Back in Centro.

Poped in a museum.

Back at the flat. The traveler’s kitchen.

The local market seem to be swallowed by the forest aswell.

Everywhere accepts Visa now.

Random shot. It’s all about the colour.

Going abstract here.

Visiting Lagoa.

To hot to work I should imagine.

A cliché.

Lagoa is a big place but it’s not like you can get lost in it when there’s only one path to follow.

I don’t take great pleasure of photographing people’s miseries from the outside and rarely take pictures of homeless people. I realised he was, (or at least I think he is) homeless later on. Dignity goes first.

Obviously in love.

Looking for the “jumping in the water” cliché this time. I did not realise it was favella kids who surounded me as soon as they saw the camera. I still kind of like the picture, though.

Random image but important considering the descriptive overall goal of this blog.

The same here.

If you are looking for a close up of a tanned ass with a thong you normally see in magazines and postcards about Brazil don’t go any further, that’s the closest think you are going to get.

Another meaningless picture!

Last one taken in Rio. After that we spent a week in Bonito and went straight to Iguabinha.

Cutting limbs and leaving to much headroom seems to be my signature lately. Amputated Adriana here.

I only took two shots with the Minolta during our stay in Iguabinha. So here we are back at Rio. More precisley in Jardim Botanico.

The equivalent of a London  squirrel.

The newspaper as some sort of rug tops it!

Blue everywhere!

Juggeling with fruit for some money. Unfortunately this is the only picture I have of that scene. I would have liked to take more time for this shot but some dodgy people were staring at what I was doing and it did not feel very safe to carry on.

In a street market.

At Cristo. No, I did not take the typical picture of the statue partly beacuse I was busy with more important stuff to do up there Loved the afternoon light on the mountains in front of it, though.

Counting how many toursits get into a lift to get to the top can be a boring job. Going up the stairs and enjoy the view might be to much effort for some.

They obviously walked all the way up.

Family lunch the next day. Some can’t deal with so much delicious meet.

Our last night in Brazil was spent in a very cool bar where they played Salsa music and people danced in the street.

A funny coincidence in a shitty situation like that. I had my doubts on posting this.

Enough Salsa for the night.

Next day the Traveler was ready to depart for another month away from home.

And then we had to wait 6 hours to catch our flight which ended up being shit.

The end of the Brazil’s pictures.