A selection of photographs taken in Brazil in 2014.
Part 159:
Rio de Janeiro (RJ) – Parked cars in flooded street
© Adriano Antoine Robbesom 2014, 2017
Climate
A personal selection of photographs with their stories.
471: Rain storm in downtown
W
© Adriano Antoine Robbesom 2013, 2017
A personal selection of photographs with their stories.
467: Misty clouds around Morro da Urca
W
© Adriano Antoine Robbesom 2013, 2017
A personal selection of photographs with their stories.
025: Bad Water
Death Valley is not only one of the world’s hottest and driest locations, but it also hosts the lowest point in North America: 85 m above sea level. At less than 140 km is one of the highest peaks in the USA: Mount Whitney with its peak at little more than 4400 m. The precise location of the lowest point is not far from Badwater, a limited drainage basin that is very small and shallow. It was once fed by lake Manly, that once has the size of 1600 square km, and a dept of about 300 meters. About ten thousand years ago, the lake disappeared through evaporation. Nowadays Badwater only measures 8 by 12, with only a small fraction filled with water. You cannot miss badwater: there are many signs that may direct you directly to the shallow pool of heavily sanilized water.
© Adriano Antoine Robbesom 1999, 2017
A personal selection of photographs with their stories.
024: Tumbleweed
Death Valley in the state of California was formed about two million years ago when the earth shifted by plate tectonics and opened a huge fissure that eventually formed a valley. Surrounded by mountains, hot air cannot escape from the valley, and rain clouds coming from the Pacific Ocean are blocked by the mountains. As a result, Death Valley is one of the hottest and driest places on earth. And without doubt, one of the most beautiful places in California, because of the great variety of landscapes, and a broad range of natural colors of the stone formations. Because of the extreme climate, hardly anything grows in the valley. One of the few living things that you can meet in Death Valley are tumbleweeds that roll unstoppably, driven by the wind.
© Adriano Antoine Robbesom 1999, 2017
A selection of photographs taken in Brazil in 2014.
Part 33:
Belo Horizonte (MG) – Raindrops in the cloudy sky
Rio de Janeiro (RJ) – Casa do Maranhão
Belo Horizonte (MG) – Skyline and raindrops in the sky
Belo Horizonte (MG) – Raindrops in the cloudy sky
Rio de Janeiro (RJ) – Casa do Maranhão
Belo Horizonte (MG) – Skyline and raindrops in the sky
© Adriano Antoine Robbesom 2014, 2017
A personal selection of photographs with their stories.
369: Sunset reflection
Belo Horizonte has two main seasons: a warm and wet summer, and a cool and dry winter. The wet season starts in October and lasts until April. During the dry season, you can leave your umbrella at home, but in the wet season it is absolutely necessary to carry a good umbrella, and it is also recommended to carry spare clothes with you, in case of a serious downpour. During such a downpour, some streets and sidewalks can be transformed into little rivers, with water running very fast. When you are caught in such a stream, you’ll surely get wet feet. Your umbrella won’t give protection to your pants, but can save your shirt and your bag. After such a downpour, when the sun has returned, the shallow pools in the streets and on the pavements provide much inspiration for beautiful pictures of reflections in water. And when you walk there during sunset, you’ll witness colorful water mirrors, as if the sky and the water are on fire.
© Adriano Antoine Robbesom 2012, 2017
A personal selection of photographs with their stories.
018: Warming hands
It was quite cold in the final week of February and in the first week of March, when I visited The Netherlands for the first time since my arrival in Brazil six years earlier. For me, it was quite a thermal shock to leave Brazil in summer – with temperatures above thirty degrees – and to arrive in The Netherlands (slightly more than one day later) in winter – with temperatures well below zero. I was used to sunny days, despite the rain season, and it was hard for me to cope with heavily clouded, sunless days with ice-cold rain showers. Therefore, I was wearing several shirts and sweaters, and a thick winter coat. Some people immediately considered me as a stranger, and started to try speaking English to me. On the railway station in Nijmegen, there was one favorite spot for me: the infra-red poles, where people could warm their hands. This was really useful for me!
© Adriano Antoine Robbesom 2010, 2017
A personal selection of photographs with their stories.
327: Driving in a flooded street
The tropical summer in Belo Horizonte is warm and very wet, while the winter is cool and very dry. The raining season begins in September, after months without rain, with abundant rainfall in the months of November, December, January and February. On some days, especially in the summer months, threatening thunder clouds dominate the sky. Cloudbursts follow, and the effects are immediate: the sewer system can not cope with the abundant rainfall, the streets become flooded. It is better to avoid these streets, but some daredevils, however, continue their ride through the water.
© Adriano Antoine Robbesom 2011, 2017
A personal selection of photographs with their stories.
324: Sunlit tree branches
Not all trees keep their green leaves, also in a Brazilian tropical winter. From March – early autumn – the green leaves transform into warm red, brown and yellow colors, and begin to fall. This process can last all winter, even in spring, as is the case with some trees. For many, it is also a great surprise to see blooming trees all year long. Trees with white, pink, purple, red, yellow, or orange blossom. Especially the golden trumpet tree: yellow blossom is a real eye-catcher in winter. The tree is then a large ocean of bright yellow flowers, but without a single green leaf. On the other hand, there are certain trees that are completely bare in winter: their sun-lit branches form a beautiful contrast with the clear blue sky, with only a few clouds on the horizon.
© Adriano Antoine Robbesom 2011, 2017
A personal selection of photographs with their stories.
311: City bus 0n flooded avenue
Belo Horizonte has a tropical climate with cool, dry winters and warm, wet summers. Given the location of the city at an altitude of almost a thousand meters, the summers are not particularly hot and the winters are pretty cool for tropical concepts. From May to September you can leave the umbrella home, but especially the period between October and March, the umbrella is indispensable. On exceptional days, the rainfall can be so fierce that even umbrella offers little protection. It is not surprising that the water drainage system can not handle the huge amount of water in case of heavy rainfall. The streets then flow fast and transform into fast-flowing rivers. Everything on the road can be diverted with the strong flow, including cars and heavy containers. Fortunately, the water level drops quickly and the traffic flow can slowly start, though it is with great difficulty.
© Adriano Antoine Robbesom 2011, 2017
A personal selection of photographs with their stories.
270: Lone tree
During my bus trips to the northeast of Brazil, we always had to cross the giant states of Minas Gerais and Bahia. In July 2010, I accompanied a group of students on their way to their annual meeting in João Pessoa, capital of Paraíba state. A bus trip of more than forty hours. It takes at least twelve hours before the state limit of Minas Gerais with Bahia is reached, and another twelve hours to reach Salvador. Despite the many hours, it is very interesting to see the multicolored and varied landscape from open bus window: from mountains and green hills to arid plains. The photograph shows a lone tree in a landscape hit by winter drought.
© Adriano Antoine Robbesom 2010, 2017
A selection of photographs taken in Brazil in 2011.
Part 01:
Belo Horizonte (MG) – Heavy rainfall
Belo Horizonte (MG) – Tortoise at the ZOO
Belo Horizonte (MG) – Bus stop after heavy rainfall
Belo Horizonte (MG) – Elephant at the ZOO
Belo Horizonte (MG) – Heavy rainfall
Belo Horizonte (MG) – Tortoise at the ZOO
Belo Horizonte (MG) – Bus stop after heavy rainfall
Belo Horizonte (MG) – Elephant at the ZOO
© Adriano Antoine Robbesom 2011, 2017
A personal selection of photographs with their stories.
011. Cloudburst
MAY 2005: Cloudburst
Late May 2005, I took the bus from Belo Horizonte to São Paulo, a relatively short journey of about nine hours. The highway heads south through the huge state of Minas Gerais (about the same size of France and Switzerland together), and cuts through the state of São Paulo towards the Atlantic Ocean. The six-month-long raining season was almost ending, but we caught a real cloudburst on our way. The water flowed along the windows, providing a different view of the landscape as seen on the photograph above.
© Adriano Antoine Robbesom 2005, 2014
Original dimension: 5000 x 1955
BELO HORIZONTE (MG)
According to the report of the Brazilian Center of Weather Forecast and Climate Studies (CPTEC) the rainfall between Dec 14, 10 am (Brasília Time Zone) and Dec 15, 10 am was the most intense (91.4 mm) since 2009. As a result, one of the principal avenues – Avenida Cristiano Machado, part of the Green Line and linking the center to the International Airport – was inundated at te location of metro station Primeiro de Maio. Rain water was running down from the surrounding uphill streets and avenues and filling another avenue – Sebastião de Brito – as if it were a river. The traffic – was barred at both sides of Avenida Cristiano Machado. Reporters from local tv stations took their shots for the evening news, and they focused for a while on the rescue of a car stuck in the water. Bystanders, in front of the metro station, took pictures with their cell phones, with the intention to show the homefront the dramatic situation at this metro station. It is forecasted that more than 100 mm of rainfall will be measured in the next 48 hours.
Related links:
Record rainfall (CPTEC website, Portuguese)
Image gallery Globo website
Image gallery Estado de Minas
Camera: Canon PowerShot A1100 IS
f 1/2,7 , 1/500 sec. ISO-160
combination of 5 separate photographs, integrated with help of Autopano software
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Adriano Antoine 
