Some images of the Edificio Niemeyer, Belo Horizonte, Brazil. Quite an elegant design, and one which looks ideal for the hot sunny climate here. All images taken with the Ricoh GR, with the last one framed and cropped to help reduce perspective distortion.
Some street images from some short walks in Ouro Preto, Minas Gerais, Brazil. I hope that these capture some of the diversity of the people here in a town which spans everything from the mining communities to upmarket tourism. These were all taken on a short visit to the town, while wandering around looking at the sights (and sites) rather than actively setting out on a proper project. It would need a much longer visit to do this really well. Also, a couple of almost-but-not-quite street images that I quite […]
Ouro Preto is a strange place. It was once the wealthy hub of the mining areas around and gained huge wealth from the gold and other minerals. Much of this was spent constructing a town in the image of Portugal, an illusion helped by the steep valley slopes and roads. Although much of the tile-work found in Portugal is absent, the styles area clearly imported from Europe and adapted to the local resources. This architecture has resulted in Ouro Preto being designated as a UNESCO World Heritage Site, cementing the town’s current renaissance […]
A short collection of images illustrating the open-cast mining, just north of Ouro Preto, Minas Gerais, Brazil. This is historically the primary source of wealth and power in the region, and even today the mines feel more like city states than industry – characterised by their high security and ever present patrols, all neatly badged with the company name and emblem. These images were taken just a few kilometres north of Ouro Preto. This short excerpt from Google maps’ satellite imagery (CNES/Spot) shows some of the scale of the open-cast […]
A rather wet arrival in Diamantina, Minas Gerais, Brazil. The hail and rain on arrival was bad enough that the streets became more navigable as rivers than as roads, although fortunately the bad weather vanished as quickly as it had appeared. A short collections of images of tourist snaps from the town. These are not particularly curated – most of the narrative shots were taken on film that is still a long way off being developed.
Some images from the central market in Diamantina, Minas Gerais, where stalls sell various forms of Cachaça (a spirit distilled from sugar cane), fruit and vegetables, and also some handicrafts and rocks and minerals for the tourists.
Some slightly surreal snapshots from Serro, Minas Gerais, Brazil. Again, these were all taken with the Ricoh GR, which an excellent travel camera if you forgive the few times when you can not see the LCD thanks to the bright sun… hopefully we have some more serious images captured on film – if it survives the 40 degree temperatures and multiple x-ray exposures.
Some macro images of some very small plants near the Cachoeira Lajeado at Milho Verde (literally “Green Corn”) in Minas Gerais, Brazil. We stopped here briefly while travelling up from Serro to Diamantina, taking a break before tackling the unpaved mining roads. This is quite an unusual environment, with dark rocks, white sand (from the incredible quantities of quartz here) and a peat bog. The bog area is quite sensitive, so we did not venture very far from the seemingly inevitable bathers in the small streams running through the area. […]
Some random images of nature from the Parque Nacional Serra do Cipó, Brazil – a break from work before the New Year starts for real. Click on the images in the album below for larger. These were all shot on digital (Olympus and Ricoh) – it will be several weeks before the film images are processed.
Transient Eye 