Amazon Photographer Paulo Henrique Costa

“Persist! Every photograph is an act of courage. It is a memory planted, our identity affirmed, and light shining on what they try to erase,” Paulo Henrique Costa.

From deep throughout the Amazon, within the riverside metropolis of Cruzeiro do Sul, Acre, a photographer named Paulo Henrique Costa—artistically often called PH COSTA—has emerged as one among Brazil’s strongest new visible voices. “I’m a Black, gay, Amazonian man,” he says. “And that identity is the root of my gaze.”

 

 

With a digital camera in hand and the forest in his soul, Paulo has carved his path by way of self-taught artistry, instinct, and an pressing want to inform the tales the world so typically overlooks.

An authorial and documentary photographer in addition to a socio-environmental communicator, Paulo brings extra than simply imaginative and prescient to his work—he brings deep information. With a grasp’s in Environmental Sciences and a level in Agronomic Engineering, he’s labored intently with Amazonian communities on socio-environmental initiatives rooted in land, reminiscence, and resistance.

 

 

“My photographic focus is on the Acrean Amazon,” he explains, “on the daily life of forest peoples, traditional communities, the impacts of climate change, and the deep relationship people have with the forest and their territories.” Through his lens, Paulo captures the cultural richness and pure fantastic thing about Acre, Brazil. But his function goes past aesthetics.

“Photography, for me, is a tool of resistance,” he says. It’s a option to push again towards what he calls “the historical and geographic erasure in which we are immersed.” It can also be a method of transformation, dignity, and connection.

“Photography— to me— is memory, it is protest, it is affection. It’s also a form of repair. By portraying the Amazon and Amazonian peoples from a place of belonging, I attempt to restore the dignity, beauty, and complexity of who we are.”

 

 

As Paulo places it, “photographing is my way of saying: Acre exists, the Amazon pulses, and we have a voice.” Raised within the coronary heart of all of it, Paulo’s life has been surrounded by murky rivers, just like the Môa and the Juruá Rivers, blackwater streams and the forest.

“These rivers are true entities that carry enchantment and tradition,” he explains. “Here, in the heart of the forest, life beats at a different rhythm: slower, deeper, more connected to the earth, to the waters, and to the ancestral knowledge that sustains the Amazon’s diversity.”

However, the center of the world has been silenced, he says, particularly in regard to Amazonian voices. The worldwide narratives on the area fail to seize the native voice and expertise. As Paulo explains, “Internationally, much is said about the Amazon, but always from an outside perspective — as if we, the Amazonians, didn’t have our own voices, ideas, and perceptions.”

 

 

His photographic gaze, above all, is born from an try and reverse that erasure. “It is a gesture of resistance, of identity affirmation, and of love for the territory where I was born.” Paulo’s pictures additionally finds its essence within the want to reposition the Amazon (and particularly Acre) on the middle of world debates on the atmosphere, id, reminiscence, and local weather justice.

Through pictures, he proposes “a visual listening of the Juruá region’s territories” — locations the place life unfolds between floods, fires, excessive droughts, custom, and resistance.

Despite challenges, Paulo describes the area as one among intense cultural effervescence. “Here, unique artistic expressions are created.” He describes Acre as a spot the place “guitars sing in the forest,” in an atmosphere that comes alive by the “distinctive humor of Amazonian people.”

 

 

“These people don’t just live in the forest — they make the forest what it is. They care for it, plant, collect seeds, and reforest, like gardeners ensuring that the forest stays alive, standing, and pulsing. The rivers, like arteries of a great living body, carry not only water but also stories, affections, ways of life, and knowledge.” Paulo navigates this world together with his digital camera.

His journey into pictures is sort of current and self-taught. “I was born in Cruzeiro do Sul, Acre, in the far north of Brazil, right in the heart of the Amazon rainforest. From an early age, I understood that Acre is a state historically marginalized — geographically, politically, and culturally,” he describes.

Since the Rubber Boom, Paulo says, “our territories and bodies have been exploited and contested, and our voices, narratives, and histories have been systematically silenced over time.”

 

 

Even although Acre is a territory of residing borders and intense migratory flows (Peruvians, Bolivians, Venezuelans, Haitians, amongst others), hegemonic unique narratives and inner colonialism reinforce stereotypes that Paulo argues painting his group as an inhospitable, remoted, and distant land.

Moreover, Paulo describes Acre as a spot hindered by negligent public insurance policies and monopolies. “Airline companies impose mobility barriers,” he notes. “A plane ticket to leave here for any other Brazilian state can cost up to four thousand reais.”

The BR-364, the primary freeway, is usually impassable. “I come from exactly this place,” he notes. “It is within this context that my life path and my story with photography are rooted.”

Throughout Paulo’s life he has felt inclined to pursue research associated to land use. “So I ended up choosing to study Agronomic Engineering,” he shares. “one of the few options available at the Forest Campus of the Federal University of Acre at the time.”

Along the best way, he moved away from the logic that “agribusiness is trendy” and leaned extra into agro-ecology, a path to defend the standing forest and the rights of the peoples who inhabit it.

He lived for a time in Minas Gerais, and upon returning to Acre, he labored as a waiter in a café.

 

 

After two years at that job, Paulo was accepted into the grasp’s program in Environmental Sciences on the Federal University of Acre. “It was precisely during graduate school, while working on socio-environmental projects and developing my thesis titled “Characterization of agroforestry gardens in traditional communities of Southwestern Amazonia – A case study,” that I started photographing with my iPhone X, with none intention of turning into a photographer.”

At that point, he was additionally working in communications for the NGO, Elas Existem – Women Incarcerated, producing audiovisual information with that very same iPhone X. In July 2023, he resigned from Elas Existem, and in August he accomplished his grasp’s diploma. From then on, Paulo was unemployed for a yr. He utilized to work as an environmental guide however was not profitable on the time.

“I kept photographing with my iPhone X,” he says, “and in February 2024, the owner of a local café invited me to exhibit those photos in her space. Latr, I participated in a recital displaying the same images taken with the iPhone X.”

 

 

That identical month, throughout a non secular ceremony with ayahuasca, sitting in entrance of a bonfire, Paulo realized that pictures was his real love and decided to pursue it for the remainder of his life. “The next day, my brothers from the terreiro surprised me at that same café where I held my first exhibition and lent me a Nikon D90 camera.”

Even although he didn’t know the strategies, he started photographing with it in April 2024. “It was a difficult beginning, with many technical limitations,” he says. In May 2024, he introduced the images taken in April within the Handmade Photobook class on the PhotoThings Festival and in July, was awarded at that pageant.

In September, Paulo’s images have been a part of the touring exhibition “My land has palm trees and palm groves, where the thrushes sing!” in Mexico City, by invitation of Marly Porto, head of Porto de Cultura. In December, he obtained the Marc Ferrez Photography Prize from Funarte, which allowed him to purchase his first skilled digital camera in January 2025.

 

 

“Since then, I’ve been on this journey where photography has been my powerful political and poetic tool to affirm that the Amazon is not an abstraction. It is alive, inhabited, and built by the peoples who live in this forest — This needs to be told by those who are born and live here.”

Paulo describes his photographic gaze as one formed by the necessity “to reverse the geographic and historical erasure imposed on us nationally. Acre exists!,” he declares.

“We are building the future of the planet right here, in this region I call ‘The heart of the world.’”

This is a spot the place the forest pulses, “and photographing from this territory is a gesture of resistance, of identity affirmation, and of love for the place where I was born. It is for the forest, and for the people who live here. Here, we resist, create, care, dream, and above all — we build the forest.”

 

 

Paulo understands pictures “as a way of writing with light what words cannot translate.” It is a strong language that carries reminiscence, protest, care, and affection. “In my case, it is also a form of reparation: Through the image of the Amazon and Amazonian peoples, I try to restore the dignity and complexity of the territories and peoples who are often misrepresented or erased from national narratives.”

For Paulo, photographing is listening, being current, and constructing collectively. “An image, when made with respect, can be a bridge between worlds — a channel for listening and for affirming plural existences. Through it, I try to translate the nuances of the real Amazon — the one that pulses, speaks, dances, and resists every day.”

 

 

In phrases of inventive household influences, Paulo shares that his mom is a self-taught seamstress with a delicate eye for shapes, materials, and particulars. His sister is a self-taught singer, although she hasn’t pursued it professionally. In pictures and the visible arts, he’s the primary within the household to go down that path. “Still, I feel that creative vein has always been in us—it just hadn’t had space to bloom until now, through my photographic work,” he notes.

Beyond pictures, Paulo likes to sing and compose songs. “For me, art is the space where memory, affection, and ancestry meet. Even without formal training, my family was always my first school of sensitivity, aesthetics, and creative resistance.”

“Photography chose me before I knew it,” he says. “At first, it was just a tool I used to document socio-environmental fieldwork projects in the region, with no intention of pursuing an artistic path. But little by little, I realized that through images I could say things that don’t always fit in words. The camera became an extension of my gaze and my desire to listen.”

Paulo shares that he’s totally self-taught. “I’d never taken a course until June this year, when I participated in the four week remote course “Representations of Landscape,” provided by Contra Luz, with weekly classes.”

“I have a big dream of doing an in person photography course, but here in my region there is no formal training available in photography or visual arts, and geographic limitations make it impossible for me to leave.”

 

 

Paulo’s type is authorial and documentary. He enjoys photographing on a regular basis life, rituals, the sacred, and the various types of cultural expression of forest communities.

“My gaze is focused on the Juruá Valley and the entire state of Acre—a great epicenter of ecology, culture, spirituality, and languages.”

His pictures purpose to seize the invisible: the on a regular basis gestures that hold the forest alive, the energy of girls who look after the land, collective celebrations, agroforestry gardens, our bodies that dance and resist.

“My approach is not folkloric or exoticizing of the Amazon, but about its complexity: A forest inhabited, built, and defended by those who live in it.”

 

 

Paulo seeks to {photograph} with care.  “I believe an image only arises when there is connection. It’s that connection that guides me.”

As he describes it, “My photographic work is deeply driven by the will to assert that the Amazon is not an abstraction, not a green void, and is far from the stereotypical image often portrayed. It is a lived territory, inhabited by real people, with their own cultures, spiritualities, memories, and ways of life. Here, many people make music, art, culture—and above all: build the forest.”

Photography is his effort to re-signify how the area is seen. “It is born from the muddy rivers, like arteries nourishing all life in this land. My greatest motivation is the forest,” he says.

 

 

Through his images, Paulo exhibits how folks join with their land, whereas additionally exposing the shortage of public insurance policies in distant and rural areas of the Amazon. He highlights the resilience of conventional information, the energy of girls, the hyperlink between spirituality and territory, the erasure of Black and Indigenous communities, environmental racism, and institutional violence.

“These themes don’t appear merely as illustrative or documentary—they’re part of a gesture of listening and presence,” he explains. “My goal isn’t to speak about, but to speak with—building an image that is also a space of exchange and affection.” His purpose is to “create narratives that oppose colonial images that depict us as stereotyped, exotic, or pitiable. I want to show life in its complexity: beauty, pain, strength, and everyday existence.”

“Photography, for me, is also a way to amplify narratives of Amazonian peoples here in Acre and give visibility to bodies and stories systematically silenced. It’s building memory and transforming the collective imaginary about who we are—as a people, region, and country.”

 

 

One of the most important challenges for pictures within the area is territorial inequality. “Living and creating art in Acre—a state far from major centers and with very high travel costs—makes everything much harder,” he explains.

“Lack of public policy for culture, no access to visual-arts education, and transport monopolies isolate us further. There’s also the struggle to fight stereotypes about the Amazon, which is still seen as exotic or empty.”

On the opposite hand, essentially the most rewarding experiences stem from the ability that emerges from the identical territory. “It’s here—where everything seems more difficult—that the most beautiful stories, generous gestures, and deepest resistances are found.”

“Being recognized by national and international festivals, coming from a previously “invisible” place, exhibits me that silence may be damaged and our voice can attain different corners of the world. This offers me the energy to proceed.”

 

 

Before heading out to {photograph}, Paulo makes certain his digital camera is charged. He takes a deep breath, asks permission from the orixá Exú—”the guardian of all methods”—and heads out to {photograph}, guided by instinct and coronary heart. “I’m not proficient in technique,” he says. “I operate entirely self-taught, guided by intuition.”

Paulo says he tries as a lot as doable to belief his gaze. “I also trust my axé and the cultural load I carry from the territory that formed me and flows through me. It is that lived experience that shapes my sensitivity and made me the artist I am today.”

A mission particularly vital to Paulo is the sequence, “Amazonian Lives: Portraits of an Acre That Resists.” The mission marked his debut in pictures festivals and resulted in his first award and the creation of Paulo’s first handmade picture e book.

“This series brings together my first records made with a professional camera (a lent Nikon D90) between late April and early May 2024, as well as some earlier images taken with my iPhoneX. It’s significant because it symbolizes my transition: from silent self-teaching to a public affirmation of my voice as an Amazonian photographer.”

Another milestone was the essay he introduced for the Marc Ferrez Photography Prize, which he received in late 2024. With the award cash, Paulo purchased his first skilled digital camera in January this yr—”some of the particular moments of my life.”

Currently, he’s immersed within the creation of his second photobook, “Juruá Roots: Portraits of Acrean Amazonia,” scheduled for launch in August 2025. “It’s a project pulsing with the memories and experiences of the Juruá Valley communities—an ode to our territory and its people.”

 

 

“The Woman and the River II” is among the most emblematic images of Paulo’s journey. It was one of many first pictures he took together with his previous iPhoneX, in 2022. “I consider it a turning point in my life. When I first published it, I received much praise and encouragement to continue as a photographer.”

Two years later, he included it alongside the photographs taken with the Nikon D90 within the “Amazonian Lives” sequence, and was awarded on the PhotoThings Festival within the Handmade Photobook class.

The picture was additionally a part of the touring exhibition “My land has palm trees and palm groves where the thrushes sing!” held throughout 4 FARO areas in Mexico City. “It’s also included in my first handcrafted photobook, published during Initial LABO in Paris in June 2025.”

Paulo explains that the picture carries symbolic energy. It captures, spontaneously, an Amazonian lady paddling her canoe on the Môa River, with line, internet, and hook on the prepared. She crossed the river courageously to hunt sustenance for her household.

“Here in the Amazon, forest women firmly assume protagonism in life. They’re in agriculture, rubber tapping, and driving boats—They are carving their own paths. This photo is an ode to the silent strength of these women who resist and move the world from the riverbanks.”

The sequence comes from the will “to build a visual listening of Amazonian territory from within—by someone born here. “Amazonian Lives: Portraits of an Acre That Resists” and “Juruá Roots: Portraits of Acrean Amazonia” are two initiatives reflecting that dedication to reminiscence, the on a regular basis, and the our bodies that resist within the forest and assist construct it.

One of Paulo’s most shifting experiences got here throughout a photograph sequence he was invited to hitch by his good friend, Leonísia Moura. She had simply defended her doctoral thesis, “Spike of Stigma: Memory and Truth in Contexts of Femicide in Acre,” which explored the private and systemic roots of femicide in Acre—“a state with one of the highest rates of gender-based murders in Brazil,” as Paulo notes.

After her protection, Leonísia turned the thesis right into a e book, amassing testimonies from victims’ households. She invited Paulo to {photograph} one among these households—a deeply emotional and delicate second.

“Taking those photos was one of the most moving experiences in my career. I felt the weight of responsibility and, at the same time, the reparative power of an image made with empathy and listening. It was a reaffirmation that photography can also be a tool of memory and justice.”

If he may give recommendation to his youthful self he would say: “Allow yourself more. Don’t be afraid to challenge yourself and do things differently. Believe that you are enough with your story, your territory, and your gaze. Even when it seems impossible, even when resources, courses, incentives are lacking, continue. Your path is in the jungle, on the riverbank, in the simplicity of everyday life the world has yet to see. Honor your steps, listen to the elders, respect your intuition. Art will open pathways, and you will open them with it.”

Paulo is at the moment a member of Coletivo Rua Brasil, a pictures mission based by Joel Alencar and Bruno Brandão. The collective additionally consists of photographers Ricardo Abril and Jéssica Bertoni. Though every brings a novel perspective, they share a typical mission: to seize and reveal the sweetness and authenticity of city life throughout completely different areas of Brazil.

“I continue documenting the daily life of my region, especially the Juruá Valley.” He can also be within the remaining part of the “Juruá Roots: Portraits of Acrean Amazonia” mission, accepted by the Elias Mansour Foundation below the Aldir Blanc Policy.

The mission will lead to his second photobook, launching on August 2, 2025 in Cruzeiro do Sul. It options curation by Marly Porto, graphic design by Júlio Matos, with texts by Carlos Chauca, Veronisa Viana, and Marly Porto. “I’m very excited for this release,” he celebrates.

In 2024—”the yr I actually started photographing”—Paulo received the Funarte Marc Ferrez Photography Prize (seventeenth Edition), from Brazil’s National Arts Foundation Funarte—one of many nation’s most vital pictures awards; the Handmade Photobook Prize on the 4th PhotoThings Festival; and the Photography Contest of CAU/AC, from Acre’s Architecture and Urbanism Council.

His works have been included within the touring exhibition “My land has palm trees and palm groves where the thrushes sing!” in Mexico and the collective exhibition at PhotoThings.

He additionally dropped at life his first handcrafted photobook “Amazonian Lives: Portraits of an Acre That Resists”—made by artisan Eliana Yuwaka (Yume Ateliê & Design), graphic design by Júlio Matos, curation by Marly Porto, with texts by Paulo, Leonísia Moura, and Paulo Alberan Morais. For Paulo, 2024 was a yr of many recognitions, opened paths, and nice emotion.

In 2025, he intends to launch his second photobook, “Juruá Roots,” proceed taking part in exhibitions, and additional consolidate his authorial-documentary work. “I also hope to develop technically through courses—especially in-person ones, if geographic and financial conditions allow.”

This yr he continues collaborating with Coletivo Rua Brasil and documenting life in Acre’s communities with the identical delicate gaze that has guided him from the start. He additionally plans to sketch out a brand new mission centered on Amazonian spirituality and sacred rituals.

 

 

“My greatest wish is to continue being a bridge between my people and the world, and that my images resonate as seeds of resistance—amplifying our narratives even more and placing us on the map as a people pulsing with culture, art, and tradition.”

Paulo’s dream mission is to {photograph} all 22 municipalities of the state of Acre. “This project is a way to safeguard the memory of my people and this territory in constant transformation especially from climate change impacts,” he says.

He additionally goals of photographing all of the capitals of Brazil’s North Region, the Círio de Nazaré in Belém, and above all of the Iemanjá Festival in Salvador—since that occasion has a deep connection together with his ancestry and spirituality.

Paulo additionally needs to undertake a significant documentation of the sacred in Acre—recording the rituals and practices of Santo Daime, Umbanda and Candomblé terreiros, and ayahuasca ceremonies in indigenous lands.

“It’s a way of honoring the spirituality that sustains the forest and to create an archive celebrating the faith, tradition, and resistance of our people.”

Finally, he has a message for younger Amazonian creatives:

“To you, younger Amazonians, who carry in your chest the will to create, to inform tales, to point out the world from the margins: Don’t quit. Our territory is energy. Your voice is critical. Your imaginative and prescient has a spot on this planet! Even when all the things appears distant (programs, gear, recognition, entry)—PERSIST! Every {photograph} is an act of braveness. It is reminiscence planted, id affirmed, and lightweight shining on what they attempt to erase.

May your digital camera be like Oxóssi’s arrow—aiming exactly and by no means lacking. May your pictures fly like this: exact, swift, guided by the energy of the forest and the knowledge of your ancestors.

Believe: the Amazon must be advised by way of our views, by way of Amazonian eyes. May your pictures be a bridge, a supply of therapeutic, an act of protest, a celebration, resistance, and our future.”

To Learn More Visit: 

Paulo Henrique Costa

www.phcosta.com.br

 

---