I used to think my job was to make things look better.

When I started out, I was focused on technique. I looked for ways to manipulate what was in front of my lens, building meaning through craft rather than subject.

Then I went to photograph the Brazilian Amazon and Cerrado, and that approach fell apart. I spent time with Indigenous communities living a completely different, remote way of life, and visited small villages where the love and respect for the earth was impossible to miss. It made me very proud to be Brazilian.

There was nothing to improve. The job became doing justice to what was already in front of me.

The trip changed what I think photography is for, and how much of the world I still haven't seen.