Behind the photos
by Adriano Gambarini
"There is nothing wild about wildlife. It's just the representation of an evolution that changes all the time. It is the essence of nature. This is why I dedicate my life to watching, admiring, and photographing wildlife. I have been photographing jaguars since I began my career.
When I took this picture, I was in a canoe with my colleagues on an expedition, in the middle of a flooded forest and suddenly we found this gorgeous black panther. I grabbed my heavy camera, looked at her…in fact, we looked at each other, and I clicked just once! It was only one sharp shot! We continued to row, slowly, far from that so powerful animal. "
"I'm fascinated by trees. Their majestic silence. If we consider that trees are the oldest living beings on this planet, after all, no other way of life can live over than 4,000 years, you can't help but kneel before their magnitude. And impassive, the trees continue its ritual of sharing the air we breathe. I have been photographing the Amazon Forest in the last thirty years, and I never get tired of it. Because I'm sure I will find a new, or an ancient tree, in a magical light."
"What is life without water, what is water without its mysterious ability to transmute itself into different forms and become life again? They are not, and cannot be, dissociated. I was traveling in the Amazon, during a WWF's expedition, when we found this huge waterfall. Except at the borders, the Amazon region is flat, without mountains. But there, not far from the river, we saw that hill. We stopped the boat, walk more than one hour in the forest and arrived in this lost paradise. Then we understood, again, how much things we still learn about the Amazon!"
"I rarely photograph someone without them noticing. Especially a portrait where, in the end, are looking at me. Even if not a single word is exchanged, but I introduce myself with a brief smile, show the camera and ask with a nod, in silence. Because it's the soul language. This portrait is about a Paumari indigenous children. I have been photographing them in the last decade. So, every year I travel to their territory and live their routine, fishing, eating, joking with the children, laughing a lot. Without judgment or questions, just living."
"Nature has always been a refuge to my eyes. In its textures, in details and nuances of colors born a world within another. I did this photo in Negro River, in the middle of the Amazon Forest. Sometimes I try to understand the colors and details, sometimes I just look at the river. Without thoughts. And at every way, it’s an ephemeral moment that can become part of my memory.