6
*STREETPHOTOS of the WEEK
Sixth Year
(#260 to #312)
June 28, 2011 to July, 2012
What is Streetphoto of the Week?

         It’s an Art Exhibit, a weekly sharing of a single street photograph (or five) from around the globe, and sometimes there’s an essay attached giving the back-story behind the photographs. Every five years, the Streetphotos of the Week and accompanying essays issued in the previous 520 weeks will be published in volumes called: Giving Up Lent For Cake.  But no worries, because Streetphoto of the Week promises to never try to sell you anything -- -- but instead to just sprinkle a little regular Tube Candy around -- -- Guerilla Art meant solely to get overworked folks like you to Stop and Smell the Street...

Streetphoto of the Week #260, #261 & #262
The Birds of Rocinha
(pronounced Ho-cin-ya)

Rocinha, Rio de Janeiro,
Brazil

Earlier This Month

Issued on June 28, 2011

Myself and fellow photographers Sarah Stern and Carlos P. Beltran recently returned to the United States after living and photographing for three weeks in Rocinha (pronounced: Ho-sin-ia), the largest favela (known in the media as: "a narco dictator-run shantytown slum") in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Despite having failed to steer clear of the gang, even being summoned by the gang lord ("boss") at one juncture for a discussion about our work in Rocinha, we completed our mission: to ignore the power structure and what the headlines tell us about this exotic and dangerous place, and over a three-week period of time document day-to-day life in the real day-to-day (non-regulated) Rocinha.
Well, that we did, and next year we will be releasing a book about the real Rocinha and a movie about the making of the book, a hardcopy accounting with the working title: Rocinha, Brazil; The Poetry of Everyday Life in the Largest Un-pacified Favela in Rio de Janeiro on the Cusp of Brazil's Emergence as a World Economic Giant and of Rio's Hosting of the World Cup of Futbol in 2014 and Olympic Games in 2016.

This week's Streetphoto of the Week is about Pets:
The caged bird sings Rocinha's song...
The people of Rocinha (pronunced: Ho-cin-ya) have many pets to keep them company and to share life with them in their tight favela quarters. We saw one guy in an alley walking his pet snake around town. One fellow had a monkey on his back attached to a chain, and of course dogs were everywhere. And they are surprisingly well mannered dogs, used to staying out from under people's feet, the teeming throng of humanity in this confined and uber-overpopulated place never stops flowing in the long access alleys or on the several bigger potholed streets (with narrow three-foot sidewalks, if any), and the dogs tend to stay put on stoops, on windows ledges, or scrunched up asleep in the fringes of alley nooks. Both the alleys and rooftops have lively cat communities. The ones on the rooftops loud with regular cat fights as numbers of cats jump roof to roof invading each others territories, also tending to cause trouble using residents laundry and potted plants and patio furniture to defecate in. We were in one house who's owner totally encased his rooftop in wire mesh fencing just to keep the troublesome cats out.
Chickens and roosters in patios and up on rooftops. Vultures nearly always circling the favella between its Two Brothers mountain perch and the nearby Atlantic beach. Hummingbirds and kingfishers finding a home and a way to do business amongst all that brick and concrete humanity.
But the most visible animal aside from humans in Rocinha is the caged bird, perhaps a perfect metaphor for these 175,000 people all living together on this square kilometer and a half plot of land. A pet that can be easily ignored and not be under foot, hung from the ceiling or porch roof and not taking up precious counter or floor space in tiny crammed apartments. Many bird owners even take their birds with them when they go to hang out at a bar or in one of the few open gathering spaces of the favella.



*Note: one out of every eight people on Earth live in poverty.
Please continue to give as much as you can to help alleviate this condition.

Streetphoto of the Week #263
Slices of Rocinha: Crammed Quarters
(pronounced Ho-cin-ya)

Rocinha, Rio de Janeiro,
Brazil

Last Month

Issued on July 19, 2011


This week's Streetphoto of the Week gives a photographic overview of Rocinha from several perspectives.
An excellent article about the Rocinha photo shoot by Jan Biles recently appeared in the Topeka Capitol-Journal and at: http://cjonline.com/news/2011-07-02/photos-capture-grit-heart-rio-slum#.TiBBMs11Lqw .

This note gives a good overview of our experience this summer in Brazil and is worth a read...


Myself and fellow photographers Sarah Stern and Carlos P. Beltran returned to the United States in June after living and photographing for three weeks in Rocinha (pronounced: Ho-sin-ia), the largest favela (known in the media as: "a narco dictator-run shantytown slum") in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Despite having failed to steer clear of the gang, even being summoned by the gang lord ("boss") at one juncture for a discussion about our work in Rocinha, we completed our mission: to ignore the power structure and what the headlines tell us about this exotic and dangerous place, and over a three-week period of time document day-to-day life in the real day-to-day (non-regulated) Rocinha.
Well, that we did, and next year we will be releasing a book about the real Rocinha and a movie about the making of the book, a hardcopy accounting with the working title: Rocinha, Brazil; The Poetry of Everyday Life in the Largest Un-pacified Favela in Rio de Janeiro on the Cusp of Brazil's Emergence as a World Economic Giant and of Rio's Hosting of the World Cup of Futbol in 2014 and Olympic Games in 2016.


*Note: one out of every eight people on Earth live in poverty.
Please continue to give as much as you can to help alleviate this condition.


*News Article About the Shoot:
http://cjonline.com/news/2011-07-02/photos-capture-grit-heart-rio-slum#.TiBBMs11Lqw

Streetphoto of the Week #264
On the Rooftops of the Favela

Rocinha, Rio de Janeiro,
Brazil

Last Month
Issued on July 26, 2011

This week's Streetphoto of the Week takes a look at life on the rooftops of Rocinha (pronounced Ho-cin-ya), the largest favela in Latin America, a gang-run barrio of jumbled hollow brick and concrete buildings clinging to the cliffs of the Two Brothers mountain in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. These rooftops provide Rocinha residents who have upper floor access a measure of fresh air and space and some freedom between the cramped quarters of the favela and the open sky. On windy days many fly kites from the rooftops, as families take sponge baths together from water tanks there and others play music or hang laundry or just tidy up a bit. Many use the rooftops to go visit friends, sometimes a quicker route than navigating the narrow winding passages at street level. And since buildings are generally erected only 2-5 feet apart from one another, it's a fairly safe way for someone of good balance and in fair shape who's not afraid of heights to travel across sections of the favela fast.

An excellent article about the Rocinha photo shoot by Jan Biles recently appeared in the Topeka Capitol-Journal and at: http://cjonline.com/news/2011-07-02/photos-capture-grit-heart-rio-slum#.TiBBMs11Lqw .

 This note gives a good overview of our experience this summer in Brazil and is worth a read...


*Note: one out of every eight people on Earth live in poverty.
Please continue to give as much as you can to help alleviate this condition.

Streetphoto of the Week #265
Favela Motorcycle Egg Drop

Rocinha, Rio de Janeiro,
Brazil

June, 2011
Issued on August 2, 2011

This week's Streetphoto of the Week is a single slice of Rocinha (pronounced Ho-cin-ya) traffic. There are only about three roads in the interior of the favela that are wide enough to drive a bus through. The other hundreds of roads in the place are really pathways, narrow alleys between buildings with lots of steps that wind walkers through the anarchy of the labyrinth. And traffic on these few wider roads is comical in its organization or lack of, even with several traffic directors along the way from the bottom of the favela to the top trying to keep order. The cars and trucks and vans and buses attempting to keep on the right-hand line and the motorcycles (the place is lousy with hives of that buzzing throng) go wherever they can find enough room to go forward. And no matter how many wheels your driving, everyone is kept busy rubbernecking like mad to avoid the giant wheel-swallowing potholes that send traffic out of order and make surviving a trip up those roads an act of nature.
Now try it while riding tandem on a motorcycle while balancing several dozen eggs on top of a large cardboard box...


Look for the book:
Rocinha, Brazil; The Poetry of Everyday Life in the Largest Un-pacified Favela in Rio de Janeiro on the Cusp of Brazil's Emergence as a World Economic Giant and of Rio's Hosting of the World Cup of Fútbol in 2014 and Olympic Games in 2016
Out this coming winter: by Gary Mark Smith, Sarah Stern and Carlos P. Beltran: including a short film on DVD about the making of the book by Carlos P. Beltran.


An excellent article about the Rocinha photo shoot by Jan Biles recently appeared in the Topeka Capitol-Journal and at: http://cjonline.com/news/2011-07-02/photos-capture-grit-heart-rio-slum#.TiBBMs11Lqw .

 This note gives a good overview of our experience this summer in Brazil and is worth a read...


*Note: one out of every eight people on Earth live in poverty.
Please continue to give as much as you can to help alleviate this condition.