Unknown Heroes

Two months ago I came back to Portugal from a great trip through the Colorado Plateau, in the Arizona and Utah states of the United States of America. It was an amazing trip, through six National Parks and some amazing landscapes, and I was able to take a lot of photos. My friends here loved them, they said they were amazing photographs, but the real truth is that one of the main reasons the photos look great is because the places themselves are fantastic. And the reason these places are fantastic is because lots of people care for them, and wanted to protect them.

More than one hundred years ago, some people in the USA came up with this weird idea that Nature is something that fuels our spirits. They defended that the wild places that still existed in America should be protected from commercial exploitation, and should be made public so that all people, regardless of age, religion or position in society could benefit from them. Thus was born one of the greatest ideas of America: the National Parks. And the funny thing is that all it took was people with a love for certain places and with the ideas and initiative to make things happen.

Now the photo you see in this post is not from America. It's from my own country, Portugal, from our only National Park, Geres. The reason I chose this photo for this post is because I recently found out that in my own country there are also people with this kind of initiative and driving force. In fact, I feel privileged and happy to count one such person as a friend of mine.

She's just like you and me, she has a job to where she goes to every day. However at certain times, she packs her stuff, gets in her car or in a train and travels in our country, in order to volunteer to certain nature protection activities. Whether it's helping to recover wild animals in recovery centers, or participating in reforestation activities, she does her bit. Her enthusiasm has inspired me to start helping as well in any way I can, and I am looking forward to participate in some of these activities as well. I know there are more people like her, but still I wish there were even more. These are the people that make things happen behind the scenes. It was this kind of efforts and enthusiasm that led to the creation of the National Park idea in the United States long ago.

People look at some of my photos and they see the natural beauty of the landscapes. For some time, that was all I saw as well, but now I see something more. I see these unknown heroes that have worked so hard to keep these places so beautiful. So here's to them all. Thank you for your efforts and hard work.

Pay up if you want to photograph...

This post goes a bit against the normal posts in this blog, but since it concerns a subject which is dear to me, I decided to write about it, in conjunction with other fellow photographers that will post the same content in other blogs and sites. Basically the thing is if I want to continue to take photos like the one I show you here (taken in the Alentejo Southwest Natural Park), I will have to pay. Why ? Read below...

It recently came to my attention that the portuguese governmental entity that takes care of our Natural Parks and Natural Areas (ICNB - Instituto da Conservacao da Natureza e Biodiversidade) has published a price table that targets some activities taking place in those natural areas, and photography and filiming are among those activities. Apart from being too high for most photographers and film makers, especially those that need to spend several days in a Natural Area to get images for a magazine article or a film, these fees were decided upon without taking into account the people that they would be targeting, or the people that live near those areas and want to enjoy them.

Because of this, some nature photographers, both amateur and professional, joined together and decided to write a letter to ICNB, in order to debate this issue with this Institute. The purpose of the photographers, in which I am included, is not that photography in these areas shoud not be targeted by fees, but that these fees should not be decided upon randomly, but by debating the issue with the people that work in the field. It is our belief that if the correct criteria is set for nature photography in protcted areas, then the correct fees can be established according to that criteria.

In order to be proactive rather than reactive, we decided to send the letter to ICNB about a month ago. During that time we waited for some answer that never came, and this is the reason we are now making this letter public. If you want to know its contents, you can find it here.

Nature photographers in Portugal are trying their best to bring people to our country and to have them appreciate the few natural resources we still have. If these fees for taking photos start to be enforced it will be a severe blow to some of the people who try harder to let people know about what we have in terms of natural beauty. And the saddest thing is that this blow is dealt by the entity that should do the most to protect and let people know about our natural environment.

Download the english version of the letter.

Spontaneity...

A few months ago, I decided to go back to the place where I started to take photography a bit more seriously: Geres National Park, near Braga, in the north of Portugal. In 2004 I was there with photographer Jose Romao for a workshop in nature photography, and I decided to repeat that same workshop last Fall.

If you go there at the right time, Geres National Park is probably one of the best places in Portugal to witness the display of Autumn colors in trees. Anyone who's ever been to the Albergaria Woods road in the peak of Autumn will know what I'm talking about. Anyone who's never been there should make the effort to go there at least once. All around you there are trees whose colors go from green, to yellow, to orange, to red, in a awesome, breathtaking show. And it's right here, in Portugal. No need to travel across the globe to go to places like Vermont or Maine.

Anyway, it's Thursday. I'm traveling north on the next day to stay there for the workshop in the weekend. I open up my e-mail and suddenly there's an e-mail from Jose Romao saying that due to the lack of participants, the workshop has been canceled. I was pissed off, to put it mildly... I pick up the phone and call Jose Romao to know what happened. He tells me he had to cancel the workshop but that there are still some people who are going there so maybe I could join them. He gives me the number of Helio, a topographer and very talented photographer, that would be going on the workshop as well, and we team up the next day and head for Geres.

A few hours after our arrival, we meet two other friends, Tiago and Carlota, who would also participate in the workshop. They are a joyful bunch, and we end up spending the weekend together driving around Geres National Park in Tiago's Land Rover. Tiago does a lot of off-road autonomy traveling and a few weeks before he had just come back from Morocco. Carlota had been to the Patagonia region of South America and we end up talking a lot about our travels, the places we'd been, the things we'd seen.

On Sunday afternoon, as we were preparing to return, nature gives us an amazing sunset. as Tiago is driving and I am admiring the sunset he asks me if I want him to stop so I can go and take some photos. I accept, and take some shots of sunlit granite boulders in the distance. As I am picking up my stuff and returning to the car, together with a new friend (a stray dog that stood curiously looking at me as I was shooting), I notice the fiery sky reflected on the windows of the Land Rover. I take my camera off the bag and shoot... This ended up being my favorite shot for the weekend. Sure there were shots where I took my time, setting up the tripod, filters, and waiting for the light. But the spontaneity of this image is what makes me like it the most... After all, this whole weekend would not have happened if I had not been spontaneous and accepted to travel through Geres with three complete strangers.

Once again, it is proved that people need not be strangers when they share common interests, being it photography, travel or simply the desire of being in nature and admiring it.