In order to view this feature, you must download the latest version of flash player here. 
#flashHeader{visibility:visible !important;}Nicolas Janowski lives in Buenos Aires, one of the most cosmopolitan cities in South America. But in recent years he has spent as much time as he can traveling around a region that is about as different from his home town as can be imagined â€" the western reaches of the Amazon, with its dizzying and imposing mix of jungle, rivers, mountains and savannah extending over Bolivia, Ecuador and Peru.
The initial result of those labors, which continue, is a photographic essay called “The Liquid Serpent,†referring to an indigenous term for the river that flows through the heart of the Amazon, the world’s largest tropical forest. The title also offers a glimpse into Mr. Janowski’s conception of the region, which he sees as having magical and mystical qualities. As he puts it in his introduction, “The Amazon is neither man nor animal; she is nature’s hybrid.â€
Another clue to Mr. Janowski’s artistic intentions comes from the epigram he chose to open “The Liquid Serpent,†a phrase that comes from Bertolt Brecht: “To understand the world is to understand what in it is able to be transformed.†As he sees it, the Amazon is a region in transformation, in many respects the victim of depredation as more and more people have poured in over recent decades, depleting natural resources. His task, then, is twofold: to register those changes while also finding and documenting those diminishing pockets where tradition, sometimes thousands of years old, has been maintained.
Although Mr. Janowski, 32, works as a freelance photographer, he was trained as an anthropologist at the Autonomous University of Barcelona, in Spain. He then studied photography in France and back home in Argentina, where he won a grant from the National Institute of Cinema and Audiovisual Arts to document archaeological sites in Argentina. He spoke about “The Liquid Serpent†by telephone this month from Buenos Aires. The conversation has been edited.
What came first, the anthropologist or the photographer?
Certainly the anthropologist, because that’s what I studied in college, and then spent four years working on in development projects here in Argentina.
Was it that interest that led directly to your becoming a photographer?
In reality, they were in parallel. The first camera I got was as an adolescent, when I started traveling, and it became my traveling companion. That encouraged my desire to study and to travel around Latin America. So while anthropology came first in practical terms, photography was always present.
I started traveling when I was 16, making a three-month trip from Mexico to Panama as a backpacker. Afterward, I traveled a lot around Peru, on the Altiplano of Bolivia and in Ecuador â€" and in my own country as well, of course.
When you’re shooting, do you think you retain an anthropologist’s analytical eye and sensibility?
Wow, what a question! The truth is that I’m not sure how to respond. Certainly there’s a humanistic element in the way I look at things. But I don’t think you need to be an anthropologist to look that way at certain people or situations. It’s a way of looking at life that many people have â€" documentary photographers in general have that, regardless of their background. In this case, I think it’s more important to be spiritually open to what you encounter.
Nicolas Janowski A witchcraft market in Iquitos, Peru.How did this particular project come about?
I was first in the jungle when I was 18 and made a two-month trip into the Amazon aboard a cargo boat. Traveling back then was different from what it is now; nowadays it’s complicated, but back then it was a lot more. I was in the area around the border of Brazil and Peru, and that area left a big impact on me. I always thought that if some day I got the opportunity, I’d like to do a project in the jungle. I didn’t know what it would be about, but that restlessness was left in me.
I work for some travel magazines, and the project was really born and I was first able to work on it when I made another trip to Ecuador, which ended up being the first stage of the project. I was working down on the coast, on a trip on which I had been sent by a magazine, and I took advantage of that to begin my personal project on my own account.
You say the region had a big impact on you. In what sense?
The first level, for sure, was spiritual. I felt a connection to the exuberance of the jungle â€" it’s got such a strong energy. That’s the first impact on anybody, the voluptuousness of the region. Then, what surprised me a lot was the human qualities of the people who struggle to live there. The jungle is warm, and so are its people. They are friendly and really very polite.
I notice that on your site you talk about “Amazons†in the plural, rather than the singular. What is the reason for that?
I understand the Amazon to be a region, but one with important distinctions between the lowlands in a place like Bolivia, an urban center like Iquitos in Peru, or Ecuador, where the jungle is still virgin in many respects. The cultures and the languages that are spoken there are also very different, and here I am talking about the original languages of the native inhabitants.
The subjects of your photographs in this series range from shamans to prostitutes. How did you choose your subjects?
When I started, I asked myself whether at some point this could become a book, and from that point on, each of the three stages on which I’ve worked has had a particular main point. In Ecuador, it was the environmental question and the oil companies, and how that affected the people who live in the region.
As a result of that first trip, I realized that the Amazon is a space in continuous transformation. So when I went to Bolivia early in 2012, to the Beni area, I was still interested in the environment, but also in religious syncretism â€" how communities were being changed as the result of the contact between indigenous people and the settlements that are modifying traditional cultures.
The second stage opened the door to the third, which was that, after having been in two zones that were eminently rural, I wanted the contrast of a markedly urban area. I chose Iquitos, where I spent a month. It’s an isolated city, which you can reach only by boat or plane. There are no roads, so the influence of outside forces is smaller.
Nicolas Janowski Napo region, Ecuador.The largest piece of the Amazon basin lies within Brazilian territory. But Brazil isn’t included in the photographs you’ve published so far. What is the reason for that?
In reality, this is an ongoing process, and for personal reasons I haven’t traveled in the region so far this year. But I’m going to be going back in December, starting in Peru and heading for Brazil, so that will be my first contact with Brazil.
Thus far, there have been three stages in this project, but to tell you the truth, I don’t know when it is going to end. I guess it will be over whenever I feel it is done, but for now, I’m not in a hurry to finish it. And since I’m financing this myself, it also depends on the cost of trips and getting assignments that can take me there. When I get those, I can plan on going wherever it suits me.
Let’s talk about the technical challenges you face when you shoot in a climate with such extreme conditions. For instance, how do you deal with the intensity of the sunlight?
In reality, the biggest problem with shooting in the jungle has to do with the humidity.
That was going to be my next question, because every time I’ve had to shoot in the Amazon, I’ve had awful problems with my equipment going crazy. Especially when it is digital gear.
Of course, that’s a huge problem. By pure luck, I haven’t had that kind of difficulty myself. But to answer your question about the sun, I’m also lucky because a lot of the photographs in this project were taken at night, with me using a flash. I work a lot with flash, sometimes with two sources of light, one natural and one artificial.
But what do you do when something is happening in harsh daylight and you know you’re not going to be able to capture it later, at the golden hour?
There are two basic questions involved when you’re shooting in the jungle. One is if you’re at higher elevations, where you’ve got cloud cover and generally don’t see the sun. There, the vegetation filters everything. But when you’re out in a clearing, then yes, the light is very strong and the heat so intense that it’s hard to shoot.
And when it rains, as it does intensely for half the year?
Yeah, that’s another big problem. [Laughs] You have to hope the rain will be intermittent and not constant, making your equipment all wet. Otherwise, you have the options used elsewhere â€" protectors, anti-humidity pouches to draw out as much moisture as possible when you’ve got your equipment stored. You need luck, too, because it’s a constant challenge. [Laughs]
The advantage for me is that I’m doing this project for myself and don’t have a deadline. So when conditions are really bad, I have the luxury of waiting until things improve and won’t damage my equipment. But when you’re on assignment and have two days to get it done, oh boy, that’s a different story. Then you’ve got to get an image, no matter what.
And in the dry season, dust is always a factor, right? Although I’ve come to think it can really give a special quality to the light.
I’m very much in agreement with that. But I’ve only come to that conclusion in the post-production process, when I’m looking at the images in a hotel room or back at home. At the time you’re shooting, it’s a real nuisance, believe me. [Laughs] But you’re right that it gives the light a special tint, and a semi-mystical quality, too â€" which, of course, is a characteristic of the jungle itself, no?
Everything you have said makes it sound like you are in this for the long haul, years and years or maybe even decades. Am I correct?
The thing about the jungle is that it continues to call to me. It’s like it’s asking me to keep coming back â€" that’s a little bit how I feel. Look, these are the lungs of the world, and they are here in Latin America. The relations that have existed traditionally are being modified by the exploitation of natural resources. So I think it is important that there be a lot of projects undertaken to show this new reality, and from various points of view â€" documentary, artistic, cinematic, whatever. Because something important is going on, something is changing, and we don’t know where it is going to end up.
Nicolas Janowski Bolivia.“The Liquid Serpent†came to our attention via Fotovisura.
Follow Lens on Facebook and Twitter.
