In Conversation with Pedro Martinelli

This is a short excerpt from one of the many (and very long!) conversations I shared with Pedro Martinelli—always accompanied by memorable meals, plenty of laughter, and an endless exchange of knowledge.

1. You began your career in photography through photojournalism. Do you remember your very first assignment?

There wasn't really a first official assignment. In the beginning, I was just helping out here and there. But I clearly remember my first real opportunity at A Gazeta Esportiva. I was working as the photo lab messenger when, one Sunday, the photographer assigned to cover the main match at Pacaembu Stadium called in sick. My editor reshuffled the schedule and sent me to the cities of Rio Claro and São Carlos to photograph fifteen minutes of a second-division football match in each city. My mission was simple: come back with one sharp photograph from each game.

2. What was it like living in the Copan? And how did you make that iconic photograph during the downtown fire, showing a person jumping from the building?

Before living at the Copan, and afterwards as well, I lived at several different addresses in downtown São Paulo. Imagine being in your early twenties, living at the Copan—life revolved around photography, and everything felt incredibly intense. I always carried a bundle of airline tickets in my pocket, ready to leave for anywhere in Brazil at a moment's notice. Photography—journalism itself—was an immense source of joy.

On the day of the fire, a newspaper messenger knocked on the door of my apartment to tell me that a building in downtown São Paulo was on fire. I lived on the 32nd floor of Block D. I opened the window and saw a massive column of black smoke rising into the sky. I pulled on my pants, grabbed my camera, and ran downstairs with my shirt still in my hand. I took the photograph of the silhouetted man in midair while I was running. I don't even remember raising the camera to my eye.

3. You also worked in fashion photography. Do you think that experience influenced your personal work in the Amazon?

I worked in fashion photography during my time at Estúdio Abril, and it definitely helped refine my eye.

4. What motivated you to leave a stable job and move onto a boat in the Amazon?

After twenty-eight years working as a staff photojournalist, I took a step back and looked at my career. I realized it was time to leave and gain the freedom to pursue my own personal projects.

I wanted a new set of challenges. Leaving a permanent position meant I could work independently and enter markets that had previously been off-limits to me, particularly advertising, where my employment contract imposed certain restrictions.

At the same time, I had been planning, for nearly a decade before leaving Estúdio Abril, a long-term documentary project in the Amazon that eventually became the book Amazon: The People of the Waters.

But if I'm honest, the real dream—the first impulse that made me resign—was the desire to see the Kranhacârore people again. In 1995, they were still living in the Xingu National Park. I was able to reunite with members of the community I had photographed during their first contact with the outside world, including Sokrit, the first Indigenous person I photographed. His portrait had appeared on the front page of O Globo twenty-five years earlier, at the time of first contact.

It's one of the most meaningful stories of my life, and one I will carry with me forever.

5. What was your first encounter with photography? (Your first camera or darkroom experience.)

My first encounter with photography happened at the A Gazeta Esportiva bureau in Santo André, which produced a regional supplement for the ABC area of São Paulo. The bureau had a photographer named Chico, who showed me my very first photographic image appearing in the developer. That's also where I learned to photograph using Rolleiflex cameras.

6. It's well known that you're an excellent cook. How and when did your passion for cooking begin? Have you ever considered developing a photographic project around food?

I come from a large Italian family—we're eight siblings—and from an early age my mother encouraged all of us to help in the kitchen. Making ravioli together for the end-of-year holidays was a family tradition. She would organize the whole process like an assembly line so everyone could take part.

Looking back, I think my photography began there.

My father was a butcher and a hunter. By the time I was eight years old, I was already accompanying him into the forest. He loved preparing macuco, a native bird he hunted in the Serra do Mar, cooked with rice and heart of palm. My love of the forest, my years in the Amazon, my books—in fact, the kind of photography I make today—I have no doubt that all of it grew out of those experiences.

7. What is the purpose of your blog?

My blog is my newspaper—my magazine. I need a place to publish my work. It's true that you can't hold it in your hands or smell the paper, but the feeling of publishing is exactly the same. And the freedom and independence it offers more than make up for the absence of print.

Interview originally published on March 25, 2013.