Ricardo's Blog

Paraty is one of the most beautiful colonial towns in Brasil.  In addition to the cobblestones and gorgeous colonial architecture, Paraty has the added bonues of being a costal city with a charming port and a beautiful bay.  Paraty is south of Rio de Janeiro, and its the last municipality on the Rio de Janiero state coast line.  The next municipality going south is Ubatuba in the north coast of the Sao Paulo state.

Paraty is home to one of the most famous literary festivals in Brasil and Latin America.  Every year its "Festa Literaria Internacional de Paraty" FLIP attracts thousands of people from all around the world.  Its latest edition finished last weekend and it was, as always, a success.  Here are some pictures of Paraty at the time of the 6th Edition of FLIP.  You can click on ony of them to visit their flickr pages.

Striking image of the streets of Paraty at night. White houses and colorful doors and window frames and their reflection on water in the middle of a cobblestone street.

This is one of the large tents in which the FLIP was help.  You can see the silhouettes of the people participating at the event as well as the reflection on the nearby canal.

Two girls read with attention one of the Panels displaying children's art at the 6th FLIP.

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I recently bumped into this guy who was very proudly riding his light blue Chevy truck on the Fashion district of Sao Paulo, the Oscar Freire Street.  As you can see in the picture, all kinds of people were very excited with this very cool truck.  The color is also remarkable, as I remember that light blue was quite commen when I was a kid, 30 something years ago.  I hope you like it.  Click on the picture for its flickr page.   Can you see its Chevy logo with the map on Brasil in it?

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The winter in the southern hemisphere of the world is quickly approaching.  The water near the poles starts to get colder and colder and as a result of that many variety of fish emigrate to warmer waters traveling up north.  Right now, states like Santa Catarina in the South of Brasil witness the migration of large groups of fish like the Tainhas as they pass through their coast line.  

The groups of Tainhas are also identified by the presence of a variety of dolphins which is commonly known as Boto by the locals.  If there is Boto on the water, you can pretty much count with finding schools of fish around.  Tainhas are caught wising nets that can be either small and deployed by a person or large and deployed by a group of fishermen.  

I recently published a sequence of 12 photos showing how fisherman wait and then deploy their fishnets into the sea.  Here are a few of the photos, click on any of them to visit its flickr page and see the rest of the sequence there.  There are 12 of them, and only 8 published here.

This is the start of the sequence.  A fisherman has the fishnet in his hands and waits for the right tide to deply his fishnet.

This is the second picture on the sequence.  The fisherman starts to move his body similar to a golfer to be able to swing the fishnet as far as possible from the shore.

This is the fifth photo of the sequence.  The fisherman makes a powerful swing with the net to cast them as far as possible.

Picture 6 of 12: The swing of the fishet is in full motion.  Look how the movement of the fishnet is captured perfectly on this shot.

Picture 7 of 12: The fishnet is finally on the air as it goes out of the fisherman's hands.  The fisherman secures the net by a rope.

Photo 9 of 12. The fishnet is fully open and flying through the air.

Photo 11 out of 12: The fishnet starts to hit the water, fully opened.

Final photo: The rounded splash of ths fishnet is captured.

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Last Saturday, I was walking and taking photos in São Paulo’s upscale fashion district, the Oscar Freire Street.  Oscar Freire is basically a city street turned into a mall that hosts the most exclusive boutiques in town.  In many ways, it is not different from NYC´s Fifth Avenue or Beverly Hills´ Rodeo Drive.  The people’s behaviors are not different from those in other upscale fashion districts either: you see lots of well dressed men and women carrying bags with the most famous luxury brands in their hands.  The people seem to be trying to imitate fashion show models as they walk through the street.  They are serious and somehow arrogant.

But all of this was suddenly interrupted this last Saturday, June 14^th 2008.  The street was suddenly filled with cyclists participating on the global event, World Naked Bike Ride.  The event, also known as WNBR, it is an ecological protest against car usage in which its participants all ride bikes naked through the city streets.  It has been a very successful event in cities such as London, Chicago, Amsterdam and many others.  

In the case of the São Paulo version of WNBR, people were not allowed to ride naked. The police actually used violence against demonstrators at the start of the event.  Participants ended up riding their bikes on swimsuits. 

But coming back to Oscar Freire Street, the serious attitudes of the people in the district, all of the sudden changed.  People stopped to watch the parade of bicycles.  Most people laughed and made gestures of surprise.  People that were working in the stores went out to look closely with their own eyes.  In summary, the tight attitude was replaced by a very relaxed, Carnaval-like atmosphere.

Here are the photos of the event.  Click on any of them for its flickr page.  On my flickr account you can also find many more shots of the WNBR Sao Paulo 2008 event.

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Yesterday, June 12th was Dia dos Namorados, the Brasilian equivalent to St. Valentine's day.  For the ocassion I published a photo that was very visited in flickr.  It got more than 500 visits in a single day.  Brasilian's celebrate Lovers on June 12th, on the eve of the anniverssay of St. Anthony, which is said to be the saint for lovers. 

Here is the photo that I published for the occassion (in natural black and red) and then a black and white version of the photo.  You can click on any of the photos to visit its flickr page.  Wishing you a happy time full of love for this weekend.

"Feliz dia dos Namorados", the original photo in its natural colors.  The photo was shot with a long exposition time and using a red bulb to create the color seen here.

Dia dos Namorados in black and white.  For this version I created a much different feeling by making the image brighter and making the lamp much brighter than in the original one.

Which one do you like better?

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The Eye-Fi is a very cool product that combines a compact SD card with a built-in Wi-Fi Transmitter.  The whole product is built on the tiny SD card.  In other words, it is physically the same as any other SD card, but it has the Wi-Fi functionality built on it.  

SD cards are basically becoming the standard on many digital cameras given the compact size, the large capacity (now you can find cards up to 32GB) and its cost (they are way cheaper than Compact Flash, Memory Stick and other popular formats).  

To explain how this works, let me explain how it will work for me.  I own a Canon G7 that has a SD card slot.  If I had one Eye-Fi, I could simply set it up once to my computer and WiFi router.  From that moment on, any time my camera is turned on in a region of my house covered by my router, my G7 will automatically start to download my new pictures into my computer.  Since I take many photos every week, this is a true blessing and one that prevents accidents such as accidentally erasing photos that I have not downloaded to my PC when I run out of chips.

In summary, a great and very innovative product. The only caveat, its price: its $100.  Read another article from gizmodo on the Eye-Fi here.

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Here is a blog post in which you can skip the text completely and go straight to the comments section.  On this post the Engadget crew asks its readers what is the best entry-level DSLR camera.  With summer holidays quickly approaching and SLRs becoming a more common item, this is a very interesting place to look at for advice.

Of course, if you been to photography for a while, you will find no surprises… you will see lots of Nikon and Canon advocates with a few folks going for Pentax or Olympus.  Just like in real life.

Here is the address of the post.

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The Caribbean is famous for its wonderful beaches across many different countries and cultures.  Among other things, its beaches are famous for its colors, who usually range from green tones to blue tones with many different varieties in between.  Here is an interesting picture I shot recently of a Caribbean Island when I was on route from Miami to Punta Cana, Dominican Republic.  Click on the picture for its flickr page.

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I love the pink lights on this typical guatemalan dance on Antigua Guatemala.  Click on the picture to access its flickr page.

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Recently, I shot a good number of pictures of my Patricia wearing a colorful retro dress.  I have just loaded a few of them to my flickr account.  Here are a couple of pictures that I like a lot given her beautiful smile and expression.  Click on any of them to visit the photos in flickr and check out my Patricia set, which has dozens of great pictures of her.

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