“I was sent to shoot the city of Manaus by Travel & Leisure Magazine a few years back and was shocked to find that it wasn’t just a small village, but a thriving town of two million people in the middle of the Amazon jungle. Everything had changed more than 40 years ago when the Brazilian government decided to make the area a tax-free zone. Multinational corporations set up shop there, and everything else you found in a big city followed suit, like pollution and maddening traffic. Being there felt like being in the Wild West at the turn of the 20th Century. That was its charm to me; an odd mix of characters seeking opportunity in this totally incongruous place. As if such a big city doesn’t belong in the jungle, but somehow it’s there – and it’s definitely there to stay. Fitting that two big rivers meet here to form the Amazon River. The black waters of the Rio Negro meet the murky brown waters of the Solimões; but for some mysterious reason they don’t mix, instead running alongside each other for miles.” – João Canziani.

Canziani is an editorial and commercial photographer based in New York City. To see more of his work click here.