Memories of Home

Happy holidays! To me, the winter season has strong associations with time spent in Brazil with family, enjoying a christmas feast in the summer heat. It’s quite different from the stereotypical snowy winters of the northern hemisphere. So, this year I am bringing my holiday blog post closer to “home” and taking the opportunity to share some of the wonderful birds of South America. Of course, there’s a catch - these were photographed in San Diego Zoo’s tropical aviary, rather than their natural jungle environments. I hope you enjoy this somewhat unusual winter blog post, full of vibrant colours and charismatic wildlife!

A New Day in Rio

Sunrise is often the quietest time in any big city, and in Rio de Janeiro it feels a bit odd and wonderful to have the landscapes to yourself, before everyone else wakes up. The unusual serenity of the sunrise often brings with it some stunning light, especially on mornings with clear skies. Below is a collection of some sunrises I captured in Rio, from several locations. In a country like Brazil, I strongly recommend photographing at unsociable hours only if you can do so as part of a larger group - going alone can be dangerous depending on the locations you visit.

Sunset at the Sugar Loaf

One of the most popular tourist attractions in Rio de Janeiro is the Sugar Loaf (Pão de Açucar), where you can take a series of cable cars between the mountains and see the city from above. A few years ago, I visited this spot at sunset and came out with several images I am very fond of.

Magical Rio

Today my blog features Rio de Janeiro, my hometown (home-megacity?). Although it suffers from many political and societal problems, Rio is undeniably a beautiful, colourful, and vibrant place. The real magic of the city comes alive at night, as the sun comes down and lights the sky up with a deep orange that perfectly matches the bright city lights. Here are some of my best images of this magical time…

Serra da Capivara Landscapes

The fifth and final blog post in the Serra da Capivara series finally zooms out to showcase the wider beauty of the land, including panoramas of the unique rocky formations in the region. The area contains a wild and beautiful mixture of cliffs, caves, rocks, forests, and vast plains and scrubland. These images were taken in the summer, the driest and hottest time of the year, as is reflected by the dry vegetation.

Walking in Prehistoric Caves

The caves in the Serra da Capivara National Park are truly stunning - even the ones left unpainted by our prehistoric cousins. The fourth blog post in this series features a few of the cave walks through the park, which are best enjoyed on local anthropological tours that will guide you through the history and interpretation of the cave paintings.

Cave Painting Designs

The third part of my Serra da Capivara blog series is a little different: these are images of the locally-produced, handcrafted ceramics inspired by the ancient cave paintings discovered in the region. These are made as souvenirs for tourists, and help support the local population that lives in the surrounding areas. Perhaps due to its location, the national park remains somewhat undiscovered, and has yet to properly tap into Brazil’s international tourism market.

Visit to Prehistory

For the second post in my Serra da Capivara blog series, I feature some of the amazing cave paintings in its ancient caves. Some of these date back some 25,000 years, giving valuable insights into the lives of early South American communities. Intertwined with the paintings are some of mother nature’s own artworks, such as the ruffling textures of the caves’ walls.

Animals of Serra da Capivara

Time for something a little different! This month, I am featuring the Serra da Capivara National Park, in the northeast of Brazil, over five weekend posts. This UNESCO World Heritage Site is of great interest to geologists, anthropologists, and animal behaviour scientists. It houses some of the oldest cave paintings in South America, and, for the animal enthusiasts among us, a tool-using population of capuchin monkeys. In this first blog post, I share some of the fauna inhabiting the park, including these clever primates. I was even lucky enough to watch them crack nuts with rocks for several minutes, and caught a couple of images of this behaviour too.

Bonito: True to its Name

The beauty of this place is in its name: Bonito is the Portuguese word for beautiful. This town is an ecotourism hub in the centre of Brazil, with no shortage of activities and sights to see. Some of my favourite attractions in Bonito are its caves, the Blue Lagoon Grotto (Gruta do Lago Azul), and its waterfalls. Although I don’t have any images to share from it, Bonito is also home to the Buraco das Araras, or Hole of Macaws, a huge sandstone sinkhole where hundreds of scarlet macaws (and other species, in smaller numbers) live all year round.

A Little Slice of Brazil

I’ve been doing quite a lot of travelling and not enough posting, so it’s time to get my blog up to speed.

During my last visit to Brazil, I spent a few days in the beautiful city of Paraty. I didn’t get as much photography done as I would have liked, as I twisted my knee at the beach on the second morning, but here are some of my favourite shots from what I did capture, including the city itself and the nearby lavender fields.