Latest news with #AtlanticForest
CNN
a day ago
- General
- CNN
Guardians of the Forest Seeds: Restoring Brazil's Atlantic Forest
Iracambi, an environmental organization, is working with the indigenous Puri people to restore biodiversity in the Atlantic Forest in southeastern Brazil, an area experiencing higher rates of deforestation than the Amazon.
The Guardian
01-07-2025
- The Guardian
Pollen aplenty and sunlit poppies – readers' best photographs
'The poppy fields have been exceptional this year, so I got up very early to try to capture the flowers against the sunrise.' Photograph: Richard Gibbs 'The Calanais standing stones at sunset.' Photograph: Barry Thomas 'More than just structures, the cabanons of the Camargue are witnesses to a rich history, closely linked to the traditional life of this wild land. Their distinctive architecture is designed to withstand the mistral wind and blend harmoniously into the unique landscape of ponds and marshes.' Photograph: Maxime Varinard 'This is the Serra da Bocaina region, halfway between São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro. It's one of the last well-preserved remnants of the Brazilian Atlantic Forest, which is urgently in need of protection. This was taken using a drone.' Photograph: Roberto Newton Carneiro 'While waiting for the ferry to take us to the Out Skerries, I spotted this pile of colourful items stored by the local fishers. I thought it probably wouldn't look out of place as an 'installation' in an art gallery.' Photograph: Lynne Falconer 'A pollen-dusted hoverfly feeding on an olive flower during a hot summer day.' Photograph: John Cavanagh 'Saroj Patel's Flowers of the Earth installation transformed Rotherham Minster into a vibrant garden, where each flower contributes to the flourishing of a unified, colourful and harmonious space. It was part of the WOW (Women of the World) Rotherham Festival 2025.' Photograph: Tim Dennell 'I came across these tall trees during a walk near the Salt Lake. They were dominating the skyline and had to take a picture of this majestic view.' Photograph: Sofoulis Iacovou 'I saw this honey bee drone on an early morning walk in the Hamiltonhill claypits local nature reserve. The bee was busy warming up in the sun, but kindly stayed still for just enough time for me to take the photos required for this focus-stacked portrait.' Photograph: James Feehan 'A taxi driver's morning ritual in the mirror.' Photograph: Sachin Kr 'A fallow deer fawn sticking his tongue out as I try to photograph him.' Photograph: Ursula Armstrong 'This is a macro closeup shot of the back of an underwater lettuce leaf slug ( Elysia Crispata ) taken 60ft down.' Photograph: Ian Kay 'Pruning the azaleas at the Suncheonman national garden. The next day it rained, and the grass turned from brown to green.' Photograph: Phil Williamson 'An exquisite rosemary beetle on my neighbour's lavender. The colours, the light and the subject all scream summer in the countryside, yet we live in north London.' Photograph: Mark Leveson 'This was taken from a cruise ship. I was on deck and heard some shouting from sea level, looked over and there was a lady right below me, who had rowed out into the middle of the bay to sell drinks to passengers. It was a case of right moment, right camera round my neck.' Photograph: Andy Dixon
Al Jazeera
23-05-2025
- General
- Al Jazeera
A lens on poverty and the environment: Sebastiao Salgado is dead at age 81
Known for sweeping black-and-white photography that captured the natural world and marginalised communities, Brazilian photographer Sebastiao Salgado has passed away at age 81. His death was confirmed on Friday by the nonprofit he and his wife Lelia Deluiz Wanick Salgado founded, the Instituto Terra. 'It is with deep sorrow that we announce the passing of Sebastiao Salgado, our founder, mentor and eternal source of inspiration,' the institute wrote in a statement. 'Sebastiao was much more than one of the greatest photographers of our time. Alongside his life partner, Lelia Deluiz Wanick Salgado, he sowed hope where there was devastation and brought to life the belief that environmental restoration is also a profound act of love for humanity. 'His lens revealed the world and its contradictions; his life, the power of transformative action.' Salgado's upbringing would prove to be the inspiration for some of his work. Born in 1944 in the Brazilian state of Minas Gerais, he saw one of the world's most biodiverse ecosystems, the Atlantic Forest, recede from the land he grew up on, as the result of development. He and his wife spent part of the last decades of their life working to restore the forest and protect it from further threats. But Salgado was best known for his epic photography, which captured the exploitation of both the environment and people. His pictures were marked by their depth and texture, each black-and-white frame a multilayered world of tension and struggle. In one recent photography collection, entitled Exodus, he portrayed populations across the world taking on migrations big and small. One shot showed a crowded boat packed with migrants and asylum seekers crossing the Mediterranean Sea. Another showed refugees in Zaire balancing buckets and jugs above their heads, as they trekked to retrieve water for their camp. Salgado himself was no stranger to fleeing hardship. A trained economist, he and his wife left Brazil in 1969, near the start of a nearly two-decade-long military dictatorship. By 1973, he had begun to dedicate himself to photography full time. After working several years with France-based photography agencies, he joined the cooperative Magnum Photos, where he would become one of its most celebrated artists. His work would draw him back to Brazil in the late 1980s, where he would embark on one of his most famous projects: photographing the backbreaking conditions at the Serra Pelada gold mine, near the mouth of the Amazon River. Through his lens, global audiences saw thousands of men climbing rickety wooden ladders out of the crater they were carving. Sweat made their clothes cling to their skin. Heavy bundles were slung over their backs. And the mountainside around them was jagged with the ridges they had chipped away at. 'He had shot the story in his own time, spending his own money,' his agent Neil Burgess wrote in the British Journal of Photography. Burgess explained that Salgado 'spent around four weeks living and working alongside the mass of humanity that had flooded in, hoping to strike it rich' at the gold mine. 'Salgado had used a complex palette of techniques and approaches: landscape, portraiture, still life, decisive moments and general views,' Burgess said in his essay. 'He had captured images in the midst of violence and danger, and others at sensitive moments of quiet and reflection. It was a romantic, narrative work that engaged with its immediacy, but had not a drop of sentimentality. It was astonishing, an epic poem in photographic form.' When photos from the series were published in The Sunday Times Magazine, Burgess said the reaction was so great that his phone would not stop ringing. Critics, however, accused Salgado during his career of glamourising poverty, with some calling his style an 'aesthetic of misery'. But Salgado pushed back on that assessment in a 2024 interview with The Guardian. 'Why should the poor world be uglier than the rich world? The light here is the same as there. The dignity here is the same as there.' In 2014, one of his sons, Juliano Ribeiro Salgado, partnered with the German filmmaker Wim Wenders to film a documentary about Salgado's life, called The Salt of the Earth. One of his last major photography collections was Amazonia, which captured the Amazon rainforest and its people. While some viewers criticised his depiction of Indigenous peoples in the series, Salgado defended his work as a vision of the region's vitality. 'To show this pristine place, I photograph Amazonia alive, not the dead Amazonia,' he told The Guardian in 2021, after the collection's release. As news of Salgado's death spread on Friday, artists and public figures offered their remembrances of the photographer and his work. Among the mourners was Luis Inacio Lula da Silva, Brazil's president, who offered a tribute on social media. 'His discontent with the fact that the world is so unequal and his obstinate talent in portraying the reality of the oppressed always served as a wake-up call for the conscience of all humanity,' Lula wrote. 'Salgado did not only use his eyes and his camera to portray people: He also used the fullness of his soul and his heart. For this very reason, his work will continue to be a cry for solidarity. And a reminder that we are all equal in our diversity.'
