BRAZIL

Todd Spoth — Sat, 19 Jan 2008 19:50:33 +0000

And no I’m not talking about Blanka’s stage on the original Street Fighter. I’m talking about a country so rich in culture it drowns you. I spent the first two weeks of 2008 in Brazil and was so impressed by the beauty and ethnology of the nation Id have liked to just stayed. Although there are an infinite number of Brazilian locales I did not get to visit (Amazonia, Sao Paulo, et al) I did experience Rio deJaneiro to the fullest as well as a few coastal towns (Cabo Frio and Buzios). Popular culture and relevant media suggest Rio is a dangerous place with high crime and corrupt government. It is partially true. The favelas, or slums, of Rio and other areas of Brazil pose a real danger to tourists and other outsiders given their consistent drug problems and police raids. There are an estimated 600 different favelas in Rio with the largest being Rocinha. I got the chance to (very carefully) visit Rocinha during my visit and it was truly an eye opening experience. The living conditions of the people and the general way of life is so foreign, so rich, so raw. It is estimated that an upwards of 400,000 people live in Rocinha alone. While I did not usually find myself out much after dark, I did not feel threatened at all in most areas. I was really working on my video editing via my Canon G9, but the times when I did break out my rather large 1D outfit I didn’t have any trouble. The journalist side of me could not allow myself to NOT properly document what I saw and the cautious photojournalist side of me kept my head on a swivel, always alert. I heard countless horror stories from friends and family about being held up at gunpoint and mugged, but in the end I came back with all of my appendages and all of my gear. What one has to realize is that every major metro area has its sketchy areas and every major metro area has its share of crime, Houston definitely being no exception. There is a feeling that starts to creep up on me when I visit places like Rio. Places that often hit you with a culture shock/sensory overload makes the journalist inside of me speak up and say, “Hey! You need to work!” I have to balance trying to capture and tell the story of this wonderful place in the time that I am here and being a tourist as well. I had the feeling during my stay in Colorado. The feeling makes me realize that I am in this incredible place with these incredible people for a limited amount of time and I begin to feel guilty if I don’t spend ever waking second of it making a meaningful connection or making a great image. Sometimes I have to tell myself that it’s OK to just relax and take it all in. I wonder if other photographers feel the same way.

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BRAZIL