COUNTRY: BRAZIL
CITY: Salvador, BA
YEAR: 1995 - 2005

Cruz flows with the revelers, between the upper city and the lower city, carrying his Leica and a Nikon, setting aperture and shutter speed as he goes. He is comfortable among the people of Ladeira da Montanha, a tough neighborhood of ruined buildings and bars that open to the street, violence and prostitution. Couples dance, transvestites preen, and in a quiet pocket in the midst of the early hours of Carnival, shirtless in the near Equatorial summer heat, a few men play at dominos. Among the tens of thousands of performers and millions of revelers is the popular, male-dominated African-Brazilian troupe, Filhos de Gandhy, 6.000 men strong, who profess adherence to the legacy of the Mahatma…Cruz is everywhere, but mostly he is with the people, beyond the cordons. He takes these portraits as they are offered, and rolling with the percussive rhythms of Africa, celebrates this movalbe feast.

Edward Leffingwell