14/09/2016
Many who think of Brazil think of its people as the bandits of the Favelas, the dancers at Carnival, the miners digging up iron ore for the Chinese or perhaps the younger generation aspiring to a life in the middle class. The photographs I make show another group in Brazilian society: Those living and working in the rural communities in the North East.
The work examines the life of the cowboys from São Francisco do Brejão, the village where I grew up in the state of Maranhão in the North East of Brazil. The son of a farmer myself, I left Brazil in 2005. I started documenting the cowboys’ life and work five years ago. It is a hard-working and poor rural community. Each cowboy has his own fears and hopes. Each face tells a different story and together they make up where I am from.
