Rio de Janeiro, Brazil's second largest city, is a place of contrasts, spectacular vistas, dazzling beaches, and the persistent beat of Samba drums. Florianopolis is a thriving Brazilian provincial capital, filled with vividly colored colonial buildings, among them one of the strangest palaces I've ever visited. Montevideo, the capital of Uruguay, has its own proud history and bittersweet memories, as well as what has to be one of the most energetic gathering places in Latin America. Just across the muddy Rio de la Plata from Montevideo is Buenos Aires, capital of Argentina -- a somewhat tattered city throbbing with vitality, color, and European elegance in a country struggling to barely stay afloat.

These cities on South America's Southeastern Coast offered me, as a photographer, an amazingly varied range of subjects: sunbathers and gauchos, tango and samba dancers, urban energy and haunted memories. For a month, I traveled half way around Africa, and then sailed across the Atlantic to South America on the Orient Lines cruise ship "Marco Polo" -- a trip expertly arranged through Great American Travel of Phoenix, Arizona (see my article "Africa: from Kenya round the Cape", at http://www.worldisround.com/home/pnd1/index.html). We wrapped up our 40 day odyssey by spending the last eight days of 2002, and the first day of 2003, devouring the colorful sights and sounds along the South Atlantic coast of Brazil, Uruguay, and Argentina.

In this article, I'll share 100 of my South American images with you. I offer you my own interpretation of the people and places we saw on this holiday visit. On this final leg of our 40-day trip, I shot more than 2,000 additional images with my Canon G2 four megapixel camera. Once again, digital photography allowed me to see my pictures as I made them, encouraging me to keep on shooting until I had made as good a picture as possible. You will see 100 of them in this article. Later, using Adobe Photoshop, I cropped many of these images, and improved the color, contrast, sharpness and exposure as necessary. I did not manipulate content or significantly alter any of the subject matter.

When you are finished looking at them, I hope you'll leave a comment on what you've seen. I will also be glad to answer any questions you might have. Send your emails to me at pnd1@cox.net.

Thank you.

Phil Douglis, Director, The Douglis Visual Workshops, Phoenix, Arizona