Rio de Janeiro
Photographers in Rio de Janeiro
Rio de Janeiro is a coastal city wrapped around a forest: the Parque Nacional da Tijuca, a national park run by the Instituto Chico Mendes de Conservação da Biodiversidade (ICMBio), holds Corcovado, Pedra Bonita, Pedra da Gávea, the Floresta da Tijuca and Parque Lage inside the city limits. Almost every famous view in Rio sits in one of three places: that federal park, private ground such as the Parque Bondinho Pão de Açúcar, or a public beach run by the Prefeitura do Rio. Each one keeps its own hours and its own position on cameras, and a session is planned around which of the three it falls under.
The park's visitor protocol, PROV nº 01/2024, sets the clock. The Trem do Corcovado and the concession vans run from 8:00 to 19:00, extended to 20:00 in summer; Parque Lage admits visitors from 8:00 to 18:00; the Pedra Bonita vehicle gate opens from 8:00 to 17:00. ICMBio does not require an authorisation for filming inside a federal park during public hours when the visitor routine is left as it is. A shoot before opening, after closing or one that blocks a viewpoint needs ICMBio's special image-capture authorisation, which is free and requested online with a gov.br account.
Light decides the rest. Rio keeps a single time zone all year, and on 21 December the sun rises at about 5:04 and sets at 18:37, while on 21 June it rises at 6:32 and sets at 17:16. Sunrise comes up out of the Atlantic behind Copacabana and Ipanema, and sunset drops behind the mountains of the Zona Oeste, which is why Pedra do Arpoador fills with people clapping the sun down on clear evenings in the cooler months.
The people booking here are mostly couples and families from the US, Canada and Europe, plus Brazilian couples from other states: proposals at first light, engagement sessions in the forest, honeymoon portraits with Sugarloaf behind them, and Carnaval portraits in February. The beaches are public ground, but hotels, the Bondinho and the Santuário Cristo Redentor are private or religious ground with rules of their own, and those rules are confirmed in writing before a session is booked there.
