Profile of Leonide Principe

Leonide Principe

I am living in the Amazon as a professional photographer since 1980, when I initiated a Sipa Press assignment, the Pink Dolphin Expedition.

Since then, established in Manaus, I sell Stock Photography to magazines, publishers, advertising... I have published books as the Amazonian Emotions and Little Green Warrior, among others. I am publishing another book with the support of the Amazon Gouvernement, the Canopy Journey, a tree-climbing project, finding orchids on the forest trees. Moreover I am photographing as much as I can to enrich more and more the Archive, which is strictly oriented to the Amazon and the most part of pictures illustrate the different aspects of this region, that I love in the same way that I love my work. I avoid to publish and sale images about destruction, fire or deseases. There are too many about this! I prefere to look at the Nature integrity and share the positive side.

The regional nature and people, landscapes, fauna, flora, indigenous and natives, is the main theme of the archive, but art, research, culture and tourism too are aspects that I approach with equal interest, specially the folkloric and ecotouristic contents.

Since 5 years I live in an ecovillage, Abra144, near Presidente Figueiredo, and here, from my home, I see the rainforest, all around. From here I am working and taking most of my pictures, connecting to the internet by satellite and offering my own interpretation of this fabulous ecosystem.

Amazon is the last big rainforest of the world: we have to care! and I play my part, living in a very low-impact way and showing his beauty and uniqueness.

My actual project, beyond previous themes, is working at tree-climbing and adventure, that, I think, is the very strong call of the region.

We have to show the oportunities hidden in the rainforest, create the new "rainforest culture", that can valorize and protect the ecosystems.