By Ricardo Moraes

Flying over Rio is always incredible. Seeing my city from the sky reveals its beauty from new angles.

My recent flight over the city was focused on the renovation work being carried out at the Maracana Stadium, which will host games for the Confederations Cup this year, the soccer World Cup in 2014 and the 2016 Olympic Games.

With these big events fast approaching, we are constantly monitoring the progress of building works. The new roof being installed at Maracana is supposed to be its big moment, marking the beginning of the end of renovations.

The work is behind schedule, and we are not allowed inside to take pictures. The only way to follow the progress is from above. Having seen it now, I can tell that the work has progressed a great deal. The stadium is completely different to the Maracana where, as a child, I watched the victories, the goals, and the sheer joy of my soccer team, Botafogo. (I might add that I saw Botafogo’s losses too. But our anthem says we “can’t lose, lose to anyone!”)

I last flew over the stadium when the works were just beginning. Now it looks like a real arena, but, personally, I prefer the old style. Arenas are boring!

My flight was focused on the stadium, but when we rent a helicopter we have to make the most it. In Rio, there’s a lot to see from above.

So on the way back to the helicopter base, I asked the pilot to change his course and fly back over the beach. It was a wonderful view. The people there were having a great time and the only thing I could think of was how nice it would be to cool off in that water after the flight.

But I had work to do. And, really, the flight was pleasure enough.

By Ricardo Moraes

It was an unforgettable end to enormous pain and a ravaged mind. The last day of coverage of one of Brazil’s greatest tragedies touched me so much that I’m only going to tell how the story ended.

The morning of January 30, 2013, I met a woman who was devastated, confused, and completely lost inside of herself – wounded to the heart.

The first contact with her was moving. We arrived at a building on the outskirts of Santa Maria and knocked on the door of apartment 121, on which there was a message left by children offering help and consolation for a woman named Gelsa. In spite of the obvious clue that inside lived the mother of a disaster victim, we hadn’t reached that place by chance; we were led there by Carlos, a friend of Gelsa, the woman whose small family had now been reduced to just one, herself.

Gelsa Barcellos opened the door dressed in her nightclothes, her hair in a mess and looking confused. She was lost. Carlos introduced us as journalists wanting to know the story of her son, Joao, who died three days earlier. Gelsa invited us to come in with an apology for the state of her home.

“Please excuse the mess, but I live alone.”

I was confused by her statement, but then she completed it. “My son doesn’t live here anymore, and I’m trying to pick up the pieces.”

I stood still, looking around the home that had fallen apart. We explained that we wished to interview her, and she invited us to sit down. We sat for a few uncomfortable moments, until she realized that she wasn’t dressed. She went to dress and came back wearing clothes that were Joao’s. She hung around her neck the plastic credential that her son wore at parties to identify his website in which he used to publish photos and publicize the parties of Santa Maria. He was at the Kiss club that fatal night, taking more pictures to post on the site.

She spoke in broken phrases, appearing medicated, groggy. She was preoccupied with her appearance, and repeated, “Joao was always well-groomed, he wanted me to be pretty, I can’t appear so horrible on television.”

She described her son as a working boy who from a young age fought for his dreams. He had been very proud of his website and his social status in the city, as a party boy, a boy of the night.

Gelsa showed us his room, with photos of him on the wall. She seemed to fade while talking of him, but the friend who had brought us to her apartment, Carlos, helped to keep her focused. She sat to give the interview, repeating questions to us about how she should act and fussing with her hair, saying again that Joao always wanted it to be dyed and groomed.

Gelsa responded to our questions in a confused way, mixing different subjects, but she had her mantra. “He died happy, he loved that nightclub, he was a hero, he died doing what he loved most.”

During the interview the telephone rang, and she answered repeating her mantra to a friend who called to comfort her. Gelsa told her that she had been sleeping in her son’s bed, which was bigger than hers.

She followed that with another confusing statement, this time with a smile. “Do you know who is here? A team of journalists. Joao is going to be famous! He always wanted to be famous.”

The interview continued, and she spoke more about her boy, about what he did for her, that he wanted to make her a wealthy woman, successful. As she described him, Carlos couldn’t hold back the tears.

Gelsa described how she found out about Joao’s death, and that when she arrived at the gymnasium where the victims’ remains were taken she felt as if she were living a Hollywood movie. She appeared strong and when they asked her if she was ready to identify her son’s body, she answered, “I have to be. I carried him nine months inside my womb, his father died when he was just eight, the least I can do is bury my own son.”

At the end of our interview we talked a little, and Gelsa told me that she no longer needed to take care of herself, now that she no longer had Joao. She would let her hair fade to grey. We suggested that she take care of herself in the same way that Joao wanted, that he would be happy if she was well. We told her that life isn’t over, but it was difficult for me to look at her home, the emptiness and the mess.

Carlos invited Gelsa to lunch at his home, and she responded, “It’s not necessary. Joao cooked for me. He knows that I can’t cook anything, and left food ready for me.”

Each embrace with her was a long one, as if it were a necessity for her. In spite of the talk about her son, his death, and how her future would be, she didn’t cry at any time during our conversation. But she did when we hugged her upon leaving. A strong embrace from someone who didn’t want to let go.

January 27, 2013, will be forever engraved in the history of Brazil, and especially in that of Santa Maria, a city of 300,000 inhabitants. It was a day that moved people around the world with a nightclub disaster that killed more than 230 people, most of them college students.

Out of so many lost lives, grieving mothers, embraces and goodbyes, one will always stay with me.

By Ricardo Moraes

WARNING: GRAPHIC CONTENT

Rio de Janeiro is a truly diverse city where people of different types and economic classes live side by side. Many of its slums, or favelas, are strongholds of drug gangs who openly operate with high powered weapons in full view on the streets.

Despite the violent scenario, this mix of races and economies is the beauty of our city, and on the streets we are all the same people, and our friendships are as diverse as the city.

Being raised in a typical neighborhood, I’ve had my share of sad experiences related to violence, mostly in my adolescence by losing friends who became involved with bandits, or seeing some wonderful people losing their way with drugs. Every day we heard stories about young neighbors who had bad luck or made bad choices, and ended up in jail or were killed by the police.

Sometimes, such stories were about close friends, who grew up next to me.

It was very sad to see teenagers lose their lives so young, before they could find a better way of life, find their happiness or at least make a new start. Ever since I became interested in journalism, I wanted to tell those same stories of others who were just like those I knew.

The conflict in Rio is about drugs and money; gangs battle for the control of markets in the favelas, which for the record are poor neighborhoods filled with mostly good people. There, with their weapons and the absence of State, they create their own rules. But the drug gangs are not alone in capitalizing on slum dwellers’ fear. Militias, or paramilitary groups, charge the residents for security and basic services like transportation, cable TV, and bottled cooking gas.

Covering this conflict is very dangerous, and photographers have to be aware of everything happening around us. The goal is to keep ourselves safe in the middle of shootouts between police and traffickers. We use safety equipment gear and are cautious, taking one step at a time. In many slums we are not able to come in, and the police can only patrol inside armored vehicles.

Lately, Rio’s state government has started a program called UPP (Peacekeeping Police Units) which permanently bases police inside the slums. The pacification starts with a big operation to dispel the traffickers from the favela, ending their power over residents. The program is also working in upscale neighborhoods, such as those neighboring on the venues of the 2014 World Cup and the 2016 Olympic Games, as well as in some favelas identified as the most dangerous.

The program seems to be going well in some places, but in some others, drug bandits have managed to remain hidden, and continue to challenge the police. They continue to offer drugs in back alleys, and often confront police with guns. The worst scenarios now, are in Rio de Janeiro’s far outskirts where many traffickers from the pacified areas are moving to and entering in battles with existing drug gangs for control of their turf.

After losing some of their main markets, drug dealers began to sell crack, the worst drug I have ever seen. Crack is so terrible that even traffickers used to forbid the sale because of the problems caused by addicts, such as an increase in assaults and degradation of the neighborhoods. Now, big areas of Rio de Janeiro’s outskirts must be avoided at all cost. In such places it is possible to see how a human being can be devastated by a drug and become real life zombies.

During recent years we have sadly lost colleagues covering violence. My first photo editor was kidnapped by the leaders of a militia while he was living inside a favela to work on a story about the life of residents. He and his team, a writer and a fixer, were tortured and left along Avenida Brasil, Rio’s main access highway. The bandits were arrested and a big police push against the militias began.

The editor, who survived, has since been living in hiding, far from the city, his friends, and relatives. During this past year, cameraman Gelson Domingos, of a local TV network, was shot dead while covering a police operation in Antares slum. He was following the police and stepped out from behind a tree to film armed bandits during the shootout. He was safe behind a wall, but followed a police officer to a closer spot and took one more step to film the traffickers. That was his last step.

Missteps by neighbors, missteps by friends, missteps by colleagues. The violence is still in my face and I’m still losing friends.

The field hospital was in a school annexed to the village, and on my first stroll toward their houses a mother asked for a gift in exchange for the photo I had just taken of her son. As she spoke to me in her language, translated by a man who happened to be walking past. Later I learned that even the native women who do speak Portuguese will not use that foreign tongue if their husbands are not with them.

Absolutely decided not to negotiate or “buy” their permission to photograph, I just shrugged off her demand saying that I understood. I continued on my way, only to run into her again in a short time. During the first hours there I found it impossible to recognize anyone who I had already met earlier, and suddenly I found the same woman confronting me with a “bill” for each picture I took of her, her son or any of her other children. She was aggressive and I had no resource other than to show her my ignorance of the language, even though she repeated in Portuguese, “Money, must pay.”

The Kayapos hate to be photographed after having seen so many strangers arrive, take pictures of them and their children, and then disappear without leaving any photos behind. In these terms, their anger is understandable. Even in the hospital waiting room many of the Kayapos reacted aggressively to my presence, many pointing to their palms in search of compensation for my photos.

Several times I began to cross into the village but turned back, noticing how much I made them uncomfortable. The first time I did finally enter was with a doctor who also wanted to photograph. We found a Kayapo man walking with a pastor’s cane and traditional headdress, but raising my camera just didn’t seem like a good idea.  As we approached he asked for money. The doctor explained that he didn’t have any but that he needed to photograph the people who would be receiving medical care. That same man later appeared for an eye exam at the hospital, where I took better shots of him.

In spite of this and other successes, my biggest problem came to be with most of the beautiful scenes of children painted with traditional colors. Their mothers confronted me and I had no way of presenting an argument in Kayapo. They were decided and fearless.

As time passed I began to present myself with greater calm, smiling, and showing my camera for them to give me their approval before beginning to photograph. Sometimes it worked. The worst part of asking for permission was the unavoidable interference in the natural scene, and it made capturing the image I wanted very difficult. In the end it was a necessary practice, and I even learned to ask permission in Kayapo.

“Akaron kaba? (Take a picture?) “Nã” (Yes)? “Ket” (No)?”
“Mecomre” (Thank you)

I had always heard that native people believe that photographs steal their souls, and here I learned that in Kayapo, “akaron kaba” not only means “to take a photo” but that it also means “to steal a soul.”

Little by little my story began to form. The medical team was on its 18th expedition. Their work had begun long before the first day with difficult negotiations. The natives were fearful and mistrustful of the doctors’ intentions. My surprise was to learn of the medium that in the end helped convince the Kayapos to accept the mission – photographs. The nurse who headed the meetings used photographs of previous expeditions, of other natives who had been operated on, to gain their trust.

The expedition ended with some impressive numbers: 1,134 consultations, including dental procedures and gynecological, pediatric, eye and general exams. They performed 73 operations. Many members of the tribe lost their fear of having their eyes either pulled out or changed for horse’s eyes, as ghastly rumors had circulated beforehand. The work to convince them of the good intentions and the improvement on their lives was intense, mostly using radio communication to spread the word between tribal leaders.

The delight of those who had cataracts removed was obvious, and it was they who convinced others to have it done as well. They were nine days of intense work, a great lesson in indigenous culture, and many images both missed and captured. I felt exhausted by the effort required to establish human relations, from which I learned a great deal.

I returned to the big city with thousands of images. I only hope that what I’ve brought are photographs with soul, and not souls in my photographs.

(View Ricardo’s images on Full Focus here)