7 minutes

7 minutes doesn´t seem like long, but when you are flying over rio it seems like a lifetime. The beach city is even more spectacular from up here and when you turn behing the Christo and see that view you know where the passion all comes from...

... and yet despite everything that this city offers it is the favelas, running in slivers up the mountain sides which intrigue me the most. Even from a distance it is clear that there is a spirit there which you won´t find anywhere else.

So despite the warnings of danger and violence we arranged to go...

Waterfalls and sushi

The Botanical gardens offer a brief, but welcome respite from the buzz of Rio, with its avenues of trees seemingly stretching up into the rainforest and the Christo perched as always with his eyes and arms over the city. We ambled in the shade until we came across a man made waterfall which begged to be jumped under...

Having cooled down we got talking to a family from Sau Paulo, and it turns out the dad was a creative director of an advertising, which all fitted rather conveniently with the story I´m shooting there. With an offer to stay, followed by an invite to lunch, we hailed a cab and made our way to Leblon.

We didn´t realise at the time but Sushi Leblon is one of the most rated restaurants in the city and rightly so - the nigri was divine, the tempura heavenly and that was before another course that we were recommended which had me on the floor...

Sunset on Ipanema that night was jaw dropping - its an incredible beach with a spectacular mountain at one end, filled along it length with beautiful people looking beautiful or showing some passion for volleyball or football.

The Sky Explodes and the People Dance

I thought that I had seen a lot of people up in Edinburgh for Hogmanay, but take 2 million people all walking through the street to one huge mile long stretch of beach and you know that there is going to one big party, especially when everyone is dressed all in white for the occasion.

We bought caiprainhas and some food from a street stall and found our spot on the beach, heaping sand up to make a kind of lounger, lit some candles and placed the white rose we´d bought to the side.

The atmosphere was electric and a lively mix of ages, families, friends, lovers, strangers and two londoners; with no idea what time it was.

And the the sky exploded.

I´ve seen fireworks and some inpressive ones to boot, but they set off so many fireworks all across the sky, both high and low and everywhere in between, such that for a minute afterwards there was so much smoke that you couldn´t see anything...

And then it continued and continued for half an hour with the backdrop of classical music playing along the promenade. And the crowd, the most animated, vocal and happy i´ve seen.

When the fires of the sky ended an applause began that spread across every one of those two million. And that was just the start.

Till three in the morning Jus danced whilst I watched and fell asleep...

Among men

Picture the scene.

I´m in the pool,a group of five men are reading a book which looks like it has got some great photography. I ask what it is,( in French of course), and they tell me that I wouldn´t be interested in it, its an alternative guide the gay scene in Rio. I tell them that they are mistaken, that my girlfriend is actually my sister...

I find it quite amusing being in this enviroment, but I think Jus found it all too alternatively male... so we after New Years we moved just next door to another home... this time owned by an Irish lady named Julie.

Where Inspiration Comes From

An Art Deco 1930s house perched in the hills of the art district above Rio. They call St Teresa the ´Montmarte of the Tropics´and with its antiquated yellow tram rattling its way down cobbled streets with an expansive view over the city, you can´t help but see why.

And in this house? Once you´ve walked in the darkness of a mood evoking tunnel, closed the metal shuttered doors of the lift and ascended up into the heart of the casa you open the doors into a palace of simple elegance.

The place feels French first of all, like a 1930s film noir, but with fabrics, patterns and colours which offer a contemporary slant to the home.

You walk through the spacious dinning and living area - with its 50s lounge chairs and cushions dressed in natural and colourful patterns, and electic ephemera adorning the sideboard to a glass walled green room overlooking the Centro. With this dramatic backdrop you relax with a cup of chinese tea, taking in the mix of architecture - from the brooding Cathedral to the progressive 60s Petrobas building.

And onto your room, the Sony TV the only sign that you in the present. An Art Deco bathroom with a brave mud green ceiling, beautifully paterned tiles and a bath big enough for a family. And is in the rest of the house colourful patterns of plants, lines and nature - all the work of a french designer - Laurent, the owner of a French Agency - Robert De Helios. You can find his fabrics, cushions bags and hats in Selfridges, Barneys and La Gallerie Lafayette in Paris.

As luck would have it Laurent was our host for the new year, and as those of you who know me... take a good story, a connection and a creative medium (in this case a camera) and click... another idea. Keep you~re eyes peeled on this one...

A little Argentinean Girl in a Unique Hotel

By mid afternoon the day called for a rest for the legs and a drink for the soul.

We flagged down a cab and headed for the Unique Hotel, a modernist monument created on a dead piece of land close to the park.

With its eye-catching exterior; palatial lobby and a bar whose shelves stretches up to the roof we ordered two pricey caiprihanas and relaxed supping them whilst reading coffee table books.

A little Argentinean Girl played on a floor seating area and we got talking to the family and I snapped some shots as she posed as if on a fashion shoot. Talk of Buenos Aires got me thinking of including the city on my trip...

We left in the slowing rain to head back to the Jardims district to find a good restaurant for Js pre birthday dinner.

A Walk in the Park - Sau Paulo

Sunday in Sau Paulo, walking through Ibeirapueira park, offers a real respite from a Tokyo like sprawl of ugly grey towers . 

The heat of the day was tempered by a curvaceous 70s covered walkway; under which hundreds of locals were involved in every type of physical activity. Boards and bikes; Kids somersaulting and fathers teaching their daughters to rollerskate; all vieing for your attention.

Sau Paulo is meant to be the violent, dirty and hectic pit of brazil, but to us it felt cosmopolitan and friendly with fantastic food. The food and culture of the city may top Brazil, but as a native told us, ‘if you didn’t go to Sau Paulo on your trip ; then you wouldn’t miss seeing anything.