P03_072

Priestess flower (Sobralia macrophylla)
A ray of sunlight found a break in the vegetation, tore through the shadows of the undergrowth and came to illuminate the altar from behind. This is the photographer’s magic moment, when the graphic elements of the composition conspire in a complicit language, facilitating description. Right in front of me the priestess performed her ancestral ceremonial, as she always did, year after year, impeccably. Everything is ready to receive the messenger, the one who will lead the continuation of life in the adventurous rituals. My metallic click is afraid. I feel like another messenger, from another people, not as essential as the first, I make an effort to describe the sacred scene, I participate in the ceremony. I hope the record manages to convey the feeling of the ritual as I experienced it.
Of ephemeral flowers, Sobralia g. blooms and, on the same day, its flowering ends. Even so, everything is within the plans for the perpetuation of the species, which has certainly found the right strategy for its continuity.

P03_072 – Leonide Principe
Camera Nikon F5 with Micro Nikkor lens 60mm f2.8 – Diapositive Film Fujichrome Velvia 50 – Scanner: Nikon SUPER COOLSCAN 5000 ED
Digitised from a positive on film –
Original file size: 5391px x 3628px
Location Taken: Reserva CampinaCampinas is an ecosystem with sandy soils and low vegetation, well differentiated from the thriving Amazonian normality. Geologically, the meadows are associated with the old beds and beaches of large rivers. More do Inpa (Manaus – Amazonas Brazil)
Date Taken: 1996
Collection: Orchids – Persons shown: -nobody
Keywords:
Sobralia macrophylla, orquídeas, orchids, flores, bloom, blooming, blossom, flowers, FLORA, plantas, plants, Reserva Campina, Manaus, Manaos, Amazonas, Amazônia, Amazon, Amazonian, Brazil, Brasil, Brazilian, América do Sul, South America, NFT, epífitas, epiphyte
EN1 Priestess flower P03_072
PT1 Flor da sacerdotisa P03_072
© – Leonide Principe, all right reserved
www.leonideprincipe.site

P31_727

Scented flying rugs
I had obtained authorization to photograph in an area reserved for research, INPA’s Campina Reserve. I had all day to flutter between one orchid and another, between one frame and another. This ecosystem, called campina, is full of orchids, orchids, so many flowering orchids that I got drunk, just as if I were on a sailor’s binge on an ocean too big to understand. There were dense, epiphyte-filled mats (Encyclia) covering the branches of entire trees, tree after tree. I didn’t want to leave from there anymore, and that day I photographed six flowering species, without even having to climb trees with equipment, without even remembering lunch. It was the record for the orchids one-year-journey, in a single day.
I was inside a splendidly decorated, fragrant and generous temple, I perceived the complicity of the elements that conspired in my favor. The fervor that took over could be a fitting word, but it is not enough to describe the feeling of gratitude that permeated my being, taking me along paths that the eyes could not see, leading me naturally to the hall of the next beautiful efflorescence: Encyclias, Sobralias, Cattleyas…
This is too much, Leo, get real! I was working on a project with a timeline, funding steps with so much fiscal responsibility. Serious thing! But I didn’t care about that, if I did I would lose the innocence of wandering among the flowers, I would take my technically reasonable records and go back home to reveal, classify and account for the sponsor. The sponsor would look pleased without even noticing the lack of soul. Such is our dysfunctional world. On the contrary, when the soul emerges, that is the essence of the thing, the fundamental factor that will have the best chance of putting a good spice on photography as on any other art. A quiet, well-kept mind, a despised sponsor, and a protagonist soul are the prerequisites for art and photography that increases potential until it touches your soul, dear reader. This is my challenge. It’s the attempt of every click. And I will only be an artist in your feeback, dear reader. However, just to put the ego in place, know that I already had my profit on that wonderful day and that, if my service is good, grab your profit, not only in my photographs, mainly in your photographs.
I take the opportunity to share my concept of photographic responsibility. Just as fiscal responsibility is dominant, just as social responsibility is lacking in our world, photographic responsibility is not even being considered. Billions or perhaps trillions of photographs are shared on our social networks: these growing masses of flooded and careless images travel on fiber optic highways in an endless gossip. Side by side, the images of a product photographed in the supermarket and a sunset photographed with the same distracted negligence… sorry, it’s no use being so cruel! What I mean is that this suffocating digital mass needs to absorb a minimum of photographic responsibility. What I am sending in the mailbox or on social networks deserves a minimum of attention, not that this is an aesthetic guarantee, but at the very least it contains a certain photographic responsibility and a pinch of soul.

P31_727 – Leonide Principe
Camera Nikon F5 with Nikkor lens 35-70mm f2.8 – Diapositive Film Fujichrome Velvia 50 – Scanner: Nikon SUPER COOLSCAN 5000 ED
Digitised from a positive on film –
Original file size: 5313px x 3585px
Location Taken: Reserva Campina (Manaus – Amazonas Brazil)
Date Taken: 1997
Collection: Orchids – Persons shown: none
Keywords:
Manaus, Manaos, Amazonas, Amazônia, Amazon, Amazonian, Brazil, Brasil, Brazilian, América do Sul, South America, Reserva Campina, floresta florida, flowered forest, paisagens, landscapes, epífitas, epiphyte, FLORA, plantas, plants, orquídeas, orchids, flores, bloom, blooming, blossom, flowers, árvores, trees
EN2 Scented flying rugs P31_727
PT2 Tapetes voadores perfumados P31_727
© – Leonide Principe, all right reserved
www.leonideprincipe.site

P32_760

Ephemeral e eternal Sobralia grandiflora
This is the first photograph of Sobralia, taken in the morning. It would certainly be the cover if I was aware of fiscal responsibility and the sponsor. But, that was not the case, the free and rebellious soul dominated and returned as if to fulfill an appointment.
So there was my post’s cover. When I returned to the magnificent Sobralia, in the afternoon, the sun was already trying to paint the landscape with the golden light that photographers love. My will and my desires no longer whistled, nor the thought that likes to meddle in everything. My movements were conducted in a space without time. There she was, in front of me, the priestess of the temple, showing herself for just one day, ‘ephemeral’ and charming. The ray of sunlight that lit her from behind revealed the depths of her being. It was already too much for my human understanding. The transience of that event opened a gap for my thought to enter the scene: tomorrow she will no longer be here, with all this splendor. Tomorrow I will be running around the city, solving insignificant problems, in another mediocre state of consciousness.
But someone, I don’t know who, someone quieted my mind again: it’s only on the physical plane that the flower will cease to exist. There will be certain moments, when the priestess with her wand of light will shade, there, in the campina, and in other fortunate corners, she will manifest herself again, ephemeral and charming, to human eyes. Enduring and perpetual to the eyes of the soul.

P32_760 – Leonide Principe
Camera Nikon F5 with Micro Nikkor lens 60mm f2.8 – Diapositive Film Fujichrome Velvia 50 – Scanner: Nikon SUPER COOLSCAN 5000 ED
Digitised from a positive on film –
Original file size: 3531px x 5255px
Location Taken: Reserva Campina do Inpa (Manaus – Amazonas Brazil)
Date Taken: 1997
Collection: Orchids – Persons shown: -nobody
Keywords:
Sobralia macrophylla, orquídeas, orchids, flores, bloom, blooming, blossom, flowers, FLORA, plantas, plants, Reserva Campina, Manaus, Manaos, Amazonas, Amazônia, Amazon, Amazonian, Brazil, Brasil, Brazilian, América do Sul, South America, NFT, epífitas, epiphyte
EN3 Ephemeral e eternal P32_760
PT3 Efémera e eterna P32_760
© – Leonide Principe, all right reserved
www.leonideprincipe.site