Critical Commentary (2)
The reporters of the magazine joined the Villas-Boas brothers in the Roncador-Xingu Expedition, which, in the 1940s and 1950s, was the first ever to contact several Indian tribes of Northwestern Brazil. The photo-essays of O Cruzeiro showed firsthand images of the Brazilian Indians to a wide public. Nevertheless, these peoples were shown as barbarian and uncivilized, and their images as incompatible with the ideology of progress.2 One of Medeiros’ most well-known photographs, taken while he accompanied the Villas-Boas brothers in 1949, shows an Indian man pushing an airplane. The posed photo became emblematic of the contrast between the “modern” and the “savage”.
Like other photojournalists of O Cruzeiro, José Medeiros became a very popular figure working for the magazine. The publication, which had a far-reaching circulation and impact, advanced the notion of the photographer as a hero who faced all sorts of dangers to show aspects of the country which until then had been unknown to the public.
Ιφιγένεια Σιαφάκα - Ifigeneia Siafaka
Ενύπνια Ψιχίων 