Field Notes on Current Research in Brazil and Elsewhere
Experimenting with a small camera
During the rainy season the sky is generally overcast at the ocean, but there are occasional breakthroughs of the sun. Here it reflects on the shallow tidal pools that last for a while after the water recedes. Taken with a small Canon pocket camera.
The beauty of this place, such as the sunset on the Bay of San Marcos above, clashes with ecological compromises and infrastructure problems that are a constant source of ambivalence for us as we visit the beach nearly everyday.
The above photo and the black and white photos below are all shot with a small camera that became more important after the theft of some of our main equipment. (More on that in an earlier post.)
Because of the equipment losses, I have been experimenting with a small Canon that was formerly just my walk-around camera. It fits in my pocket when on the beach and is a good companion when I am in town and don’t want to carry heavier equipment.
These photographs are all from the beach in Sáo Luís and in one of the central city’s shopping streets. It was once an elegant area but has been abandoned by the middle class which has moved to the outer rings of the city.
Rua Grande, a main shopping street in the center of São Luís. It is filled with storefronts and vendors of counterfeit goods.
Fruit vendor, showing how heavy his load is.
I have been working without my basic camera for a while and have used this little Canon S-100 in situations that I might have reserved for a larger-format camera. Its small sensor has about 18 MP squeezed into a body the size of most point-and-shoot cameras. It has adjustments for aperture and shutter speed, and zooms from 24mm to 120 mm. It shoots in RAW format which gives a lot of latitude for subsequent computer processing.
There are newer small cameras with larger sensors, but this in the one in my pocket most of the time.
Hat vendor, early morning. The sun is usually bright by 8:00 am.
This small camera is handy if you don’t need large format prints or are photographing simple compositions. Because it is easy and inconspicuous to carry in a pocket, it fits the old rule that “the best camera is the one you have with you.”
This water carries runoff from the city into the bay and then the ocean. During rainy season the runoff is greater, but more diluted. When the tide comes in it washes back into the lower city. The flux dirties the one (the bay) and flushes the other (the city). This part of the bay has not seen healthy wildlife or fishing for years. There are also cast away items from the many freighters in the bay that pick up metal ore in the Port of Itaqui (owned by Valé, one of the owners of the company whose mining dams broke in Minas Gerais and washed away towns and dumped tons of toxic slag and mud into the Rio Doce, then the ocean).
These are not the recreational bikers from the upper beach walk, but young men coming to work.
Egrets (garcas) sometimes come to the tidal pools to feed when the tide goes out
This is a small snail that is left by the tide. There are many of them, but I don’t know where they are going as they make these patterns in the sand. they may be part of the same food chain a the garcas.
Restaurant display of bottles
Sun shelters along the beach, early morning.
The rocky part of the coast is popular for fishermen and dog walkers. The rocks are under water much of the time and are covered with sharp shells.
These rocks are exposed at low tide. The sky is brilliant in the weeks just before the rains come (usually in January).
There are different ways to live at the beach — this is one
And another …. the middle class end of Calhau/Ponto do Farol
The other end of the beach, near the reggae bars and alternative (non tourist) life.
All over Brazil we find street vendors sleeping in their huts or on their carts.
And yet another resident. The deck is painted with religious symbols and graphics. It is common to see religious sentiments on the beach Here “God loves you” is even more common. than the usual versions of “I love ….” On some days you find a meditator sitting in the middle of occult signs. This person, though, is decorating his home.
A mosaic angel, a bit fallen
Every time I see this place I think of Rick’s Place in Casablanca — “Of all the gin joints in all the towns in the world, she has to walk into mine” — but Kallamazoo? Most beachfront places have names like Rising Sun, or Ocean Bar, or Adventurer, but some have named like this and “Mallibu,” invariably spelled with Brazilian indifference. I have not stopped to ask if they specialize in central Michigan cuisine, hesitating to visit in case they have burgers and the University of Michigan football game on television. A better guess is that they have the same fried fish and french-fried manioc strips (macaxeira) that everyone else does.
American romantics should be warned that no place on the beach plays bossa nova, jazz or anything remotely like classical (not even Astor Piazzola or Brazilian classical guitar). It is Brazilian pop and dance music, leavened from time to time with an folk singer crooning “Sweet Caroline” or “Eleanor Rigby.” One night we had Bobby Darin’s “Splish Splash” — an old favorite in Brazil, translated into Portuguese. Beach music is made for drinking, not subtlety.
Oi!
Definitely not Rick’s Place from Casablanca, nor Harry’s Bar in Paris. the Calhau Beach in São Luis has “Kallamazoo.” Every sign on the beach is in identical format with the Coca-Cola emblem and matching red plastic chairs. The classier joints have different colored chairs.
A tasteful sign for Brazilian cuisine — the Full Belly Barbeque
Egrets, I think. A bit worn, like the fallen angel in an earlier photo (above).
This is a crumbling mosaic on the Calhau Beach in São Luís, Maranhão. I think it originally showed a crab fisherman, but I see it as a metaphor for the city — a decadent romanticism with a crumbling infrastructure and deep social, environmental and health problems.
