Not Quite The Postcard

Brazilian beaches like Copacabana and Ipanema all evoke a certain picture, a feeling: itsy-bitsy bikinis’s, sunkissed (and buff) bodies, postcard pretty sunsets, beautifulness all around. But Brazillian beaches are not all like this…

Brazilian photographer Julio Bittencourt’s images, however, show a side of his country’s beaches that are more banal (although – definitely not less characterless!). His body of work centers on Piscinão de Ramos, an artificial lake in a park overlooking the city’s bay that’s a popular hang out for the city’s lower, mostly black, classes. “Ramos” is exhibited at Paris Photo, opening today. Precious few copies of his book, with the same title, are still available.

The scrubby beach – surrounded by 15 favelas, or shanty towns – is crowded, noisy and dirty, and the water is polluted, despite being supposedly purified by a pump. But the favelas’ residents flock here nonetheless. Umbrella’s go up and it’s time to relax, to sunbathe, to drink cachaça (Brazilian rum), pump iron, gossip and be themselves. Although the favela’s are most often defined by gang violence and guns – this beach is relatively free of violence and on busy summer days it’s jammed with bodies of all shapes and sizes and people of all ages with just one thing in mind: fun.

Bittencourt says he feels that it’s on the beach that Brazilians national characteristics can be felt. He spent four seasons shooting at Ramos, initially commuting in and out, but latterly staying in a small cottage just near the beach. Although a suburban beach in Rio – where one could expect a certain resistance to his presence due to any unofficial command held over the area by local groups –, people were pretty friendly. Nevertheless he did have a minder – Behaga – to help him with access and ease any problems. Behaga would advise Bittencourt as to when it was ok to shoot, and when to keep the camera down.

Bittencourt has a fan in Magnum photographer Martin Parr who had this to say about “Ramos”: “Here were images that exuded both energy and chaos, with a very strong dynamic. I had never seen a beach scene like this anywhere. But it is one thing finding and gaining access to an extraordinary location, it is so much more difficult to translate the spirit of the place into photographs, as Bittencourt had done so effectively…What an amazing medley of bodies, food, sun cream and of course sunburnt flesh. Simultaneously atmospheric and surreal, you can almost smell the beach when you look at these images. You get a feel for what it must be like to actually be there. Bittencourt comes in close when he needs to, then takes us further back to reveal something more about this extraordinary place.” High praise, indeed.

“Ramos” might not show the postcard version of things – but in this case, that’s a compliment.