Folha photojournalist Lalo de Almeida, 52, was last month in an indigenous village near Altamira (PA) when he asked them to turn on a generator so that the internet signal worked.
There he learned that he had won the long-term regional category of the World Press Photo, the most prestigious photojournalism award in the world, for his work in the Amazon.
That, in his opinion, was one of the main steps in his career. The next came this Thursday (7), with the announcement of the achievement of the "Oscar" of photography.
The Amazon Dystopia project, which documents the occupation of the Amazon and its impact on the forest and the region's inhabitants, was the winner of the long-term category at the world stage.
Upon receiving the news by phone, Lalo says he cried. "It's an award that recognizes a very long period of work. It's like recognizing your own career, which I've done for the last ten years."
The work, started in 2012 and completed last year, consists of a sequence of 30 photographs. Twenty-five of them were made exclusively for Folha, and most of them were published in the series "Amazônia sob Bolsonaro."
Translated by Kiratiana Freelon