Marcel Huijser Photography Home
This is where I show the most recent images and talk about how they were made. The images typically relate to landscapes and wildlife, but I also blog about photos of highways and mitigation measures for wildlife or road ecology in general. Please contact me if you would like to use any of the images.
All content © Marcel Huijser
Brazilian landscapes: Atlantic forest with clouds at sunrise
Brazilian landscapes: Atlantic forest with clouds at sunrise, near Parque Nacional da Serra da Bocaina, São Paulo, Brazil.
Click here to view more images of Atlantic forest.
Click here to view more images of Parque Nacional da Serra da Bocaina.
Some large format prints (limited edition) are now for sale at Freshwater Studio & Gallery in Missoula, Montana.
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All content © 2014 Marcel Huijser
Road ecology blog: Fence and multifunctional underpass, near Brotas, Brazil
Road ecology blog: Fence and multifunctional underpass along SP-225 tollroad, near Brotas, Brazil
Click here for more images of wildlife fencing.
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All content © 2014 Marcel Huijser
Brazilian wildlife: Crested black-tyrant, Itatiaia National Park, Brazil
Brazilian wildlife: Crested black-tyrant (Knipolegus lophotes), Itatiaia National Park, Rio de Janeiro State, Brazil.
Click here for images of crested black-tyrants.
Some large format prints (limited edition) are now for sale at Freshwater Studio & Gallery in Missoula, Montana.
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All content © 2014 Marcel Huijser
Brazilian landscapes: Sunrise with Atlantic forest
Brazilian landscapes: Sunrise with Atlantic forest, near Parque Nacional da Serra da Bocaina, São Paulo, Brazil.
Click here to view more images of Atlantic forest.
Click here to view more images of Parque Nacional da Serra da Bocaina.
Some large format prints (limited edition) are now for sale at Freshwater Studio & Gallery in Missoula, Montana.
Like Marcel Huijser Photography on Facebook
All content © 2014 Marcel Huijser
Brazilian wildlife: Great pampa-finch, Itatiaia National Park, Rio de Janeiro State, Brazil
Brazilian wildlife: Great pampa-finch (Embernagra platensis) Itatiaia National Park, Rio de Janeiro State, Brazil.
Click here for other images of great pampa-finches.
Some large format prints (limited edition) are now for sale at Freshwater Studio & Gallery in Missoula, Montana.
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All content © 2014 Marcel Huijser
Road ecology blog: Deer warning sign along SP-225 motorway, Brotas, Brazil
Road ecology blog: Deer warning sign along SP-225 motorway, Brotas, Brazil.
Click here for other images of other wildlife or livestock warning signs.
Click here for other images of animals that were killed by cars.
Click here for other images of animals alive on or near roads.
Some large format prints (limited edition) are now for sale at Freshwater Studio & Gallery in Missoula, Montana.
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All content © 2014 Marcel Huijser
Road ecology blog: Partial slope stabilization with sod along gravel road, Brazil
Road ecology blog: Partial slope stabilization with sod along gravel road, near Parque Nacional da Serra da Bocaina, São Paulo, Brazil.
Click here for more images of erosion and erosion control measures.
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All content © 2014 Marcel Huijser
Road ecology blog: Concrete gutter to capture water seeping from cut slope, Brazil
Road ecology blog: Concrete drainage gutter (left) to capture water seeping from the cut slope, and entrance to drainage culvert under a the gravel road, near Parque Nacional da Serra da Bocaina, São Paulo, Brazil.
Click here for more images of erosion and erosion control measures.
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Road ecology blog: Plastic erosion control netting can be a death trap for wildlife, Brazil
Road ecology blog: Plastic erosion control netting can be a death trap for snakes and other wildlife, Parque Nacional da Serra da Bocaina, São Paulo, Brazil.
This type of netting helps stabilize the soil on steep slopes. However, it also acts as a death trap for animals, especially snakes. It is far better to use anti erosion netting made out of natural fibers that decompose within a year or so. Plastic netting can continue to be a death trap for decades.
Click here for more images of erosion and erosion control measures.
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Road ecology blog: Sign advertising the installation of a capybara fence, Brazil
Road ecology blog: Sign advertising the installation of a wildlife fence, fence for the protection from wildlife, (cerca para proteção de animais silvestres projeto fauna), Rodovia Presidente Dutra, (BR-116 – SP-60), near Lavrinhas, São Paulo, Brazil
For several kilometers the highway is adjacent to the floodplains of the Rio Paraíba do Sul. A fence, about 80 cm tall, has been installed here to keep capybara (Hydrochoerus hydrochaeris) off the highway. The sign advertizes the installation of the fence by the tollroad company "CCR NovaDutra". However, the fence is only installed on one side of the road (along the river), and there are gaps in the fence. It is almost always advisable to install wildlife fences on both sides of a road rather than on just one side, and fencing should typically be accompanied by safe crossing opportunities for wildlife. In addition, fence maintenance is essential for the mitigation measures to be effective in reducing wildlife-vehicle collisions.
Click here for more images of wildlife fencing.
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All content © 2014 Marcel Huijser
Life in Brazil: Passion fruit mouse and pão de queijo
Text by Bethanie Walder
Passion fruit mousse is Marcel’s new favorite dessert. It’s pretty dangerous to have a favorite dessert that only takes about 10 minutes to make. (And yes, for those who know I don’t usually eat sugar, passion fruit mousse is basically irresistible for me, too.)
Last weekend we traded cooking lessons with Fernanda – I showed her how to make hummus and she showed Marcel and I how to make passion fruit (maracujá) mousse. For those of you who are interested, and who have access to passion fruit – making the mousse is simple and pretty similar to making a no-cook filling for key lime pie. You mix equal parts sweetened condensed milk and passion fruit juice (it took about 6 fruits to get enough juice), then fold in whipped cream. The basic ratio of ingredients is basically one third milk, one third juice, one third whipped cream. Let set in the fridge for about an hour, drizzle passion fruit juice/seeds on top, and eat. We didn’t have a good kitchen implement for whipping our whipping cream, so we didn’t bother, since the mousse tastes just as good even if it doesn’t set up thickly.
Fernanda also introduced us to an equally dangerous and easy to make food this weekend – frozen pão de queijo. It’s not that we didn’t already know and love pão de queijo, we became addicted to it the last time we were in Brazil. This little baked treat is one of the famed foods of Brazil, and we had absolutely no idea that you could buy them frozen to cook at home. (Okay, so frozen pão de queijo is a bit like frozen french fries or frozen pizza, it’s certainly not the best, but it’ll do.) The first week we were here I bought all the ingredients to try making pão de queijo from scratch, but I’ve been procrastinating. It’s made from a type of tapioca flour mixed with cheese and then baked. The outside is lightly crispy, like fresh-baked sandwich bread, and the inside is cheesy gelatinous deliciousness. It has to be eaten hot (okay, it doesn’t have to be, but it sure tastes a lot better hot). We’ve been eating it pretty sparingly since we got here, but now, with a bag of these addictive cheese buns in our freezer, things could get ugly quickly (in terms of our attempts to continue to fit into our clothes, that is).
Next Brazilian dish to try making ourselves… feijoada?? Or maybe risotto with hearts of palm and requeijo (creamy creamy cheese)?? Whatever it is, hopefully it will come out as good as the maracujá mousse.
Life in Brazil: Bombeiros and cloud forest
Text by Bethanie Walder
Marcel couldn’t have known, when he put on his bright yellow shirt on Saturday, that he might be mistaken for a wildland firefighter later in the day. But as he scrambled around in blackened grass, photographing some bombeiros (firefighters) stomping out a small wildfire, it was easy to mistake him for one of the crew.
We spent the weekend in and around Parque Nacional da Serra da Bocaina. Near the coastal border of São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro states, Bocaina covers about 104,000 hectares and is largely made up of primary Atlantic Forest. It has some of the highest mountains in São Paulo State, and the mountains drop right down to the ocean. It definitely felt like we were headed into the clouds as we drove up a very steep, extremely curvy mountain road, in a thick fog, near midnight Friday night. The cloud forest has tapir, puma, sloths, several species of monkeys and numerous other mammals, though we didn’t see any wildlife while we were there (but we did find some tracks that might have been from a puma).
Images below Atlantic forest (here it is also a cloud forest), near Parque Nacional da Serra da Bocaina, São Paulo, Brazil. At the end of the afternoon - as the sun sets - the clouds roll in over the forested slopes.
We stayed in a beautiful house (we are fortunate to know Gambá, since he has many friends who have well-placed vacation houses) near the top of a mountain, just a few kilometers from one of the park entrances. As we drove to the park on Saturday we had passed two bombeiros (fire fighters), walking along the road in their bright yellow shirts. Gambá gave them a ride to the park in the bed of the VW Amarok pickup truck (VW sponsors the outdoor adventure company Gambá works for, Adventure Camp, by providing them with this truck – Marcel is infatuated – if they sold diesel Amaroks in the US, I think he’d buy one).
Images below: Firefighters hitching a ride to a fire with the Volkswagen Amarok from Adventure Camp, Parque Nacional da Serra da Bocaina, São Paulo, Brazil
On our way back to the house, we encountered two more bombeiros. As we were driving away, they got a call on the radio about a fire and they started jogging. So Gambá turned around and offered them a ride. They happily jumped in. Then we drove, nearly 12K on terribly eroded and rutted dirt roads, to the fire. I thought the bombeiros would bounce out of the truck – even inside we were belted in and holding on. Regardless, Marcel and I were confused. Were they just going to walk the 12K to the fire? That would take hours. Where were their tools?
Thanks to Gambá, the two bombeiros we picked up arrived first, and were able to quickly arrest any further advance of the tiny grass fire we encountered. The fire had already mostly stopped as it reached larger, wetter, vegetation. Thankfully it was tiny, because the only fire-fighting tools they were carrying were machetes. No water, no pulaskis, no shovels. They literally stamped out the fire with their boots and then hacked a smoldering, twisted, tree trunk out of the ground to move it away from other flammable vegetation, placing it atop the blackened grasses that had already burned. Perhaps 10 minutes after we arrived, two more bombeiros showed up on a motorcycle. They also had no real tools with them. They showed us cellphone videos of the much larger fire they had put out the week before. They also told us that, during this drought, people have been setting fires in the mountains, but I wasn’t able to discern if it was pure mischief or if these arsonists were gaining in some way. As we were driving away, nearly 45 minutes or more after we initially got there, a truck with tools and a few more bombeiros was arriving. But even at that point, the water truck still hadn’t come.
Images below: Firefighter kicking out the last bits of a grass fire, Parque Nacional da Serra da Bocaina, São Paulo, Brazil
Image below: Firefighters after putting out a grassland fire, Parque Nacional da Serra da Bocaina, São Paulo, Brazil
If Gambá hadn’t driven these two bombeiros to the fire, they would have walked for a good hour or more before being picked up by a truck that was hauling the remaining fire crew and some tools. This scenario is just so foreign, especially when considering the “fire-industrial complex” in western forests of the United States. But then again, that’s the beauty of visiting foreign countries – you get to see and experience such differences. And in this instance, the limited resources had no real impact on whether or not the bombeiros were able to put out the fire. Regardless, it made for a very interesting afternoon.
Images below: Firefighters after putting out a grassland fire, Parque Nacional da Serra da Bocaina, São Paulo, Brazil
Image below: Roadside meeting with fire fighters, Parque Nacional da Serra da Bocaina, São Paulo, Brazil
Click here to view other images the firefighters
Click here to view more images of Atlantic forest
Some large format prints (limited edition) are now for sale at Freshwater Studio & Gallery in Missoula, Montana.
Like Marcel Huijser Photography on Facebook
All content © 2014 Marcel Huijser
The strike at the University of São Paulo, Brazil
The strike at the University of São Paulo, Brazil.
A good portion of the university personnel has been on strike for more than 3 months now because of disagreements with regard to wages, absence of inflation corrections, and cuts in access to health care and educational opportunities. I heard that some university buildings on the main campus in São Paulo are now occupied and that there have been clashes involving rubber bullets having been fired at the protesters. I have not seen any aggression or violence here at the Piracicaba campus though; not from the protesters and not from the police. The strikers are kind and eager to explain their cause. However, some classes have been cancelled, and the administration process for certain classes may be hindered. With the strike lasting for more than 3 months now it seems that something needs to change and a skilled mediator seems very much needed.
Image below: The encampment of the strikers at the University of São Paulo in front of the main building, Piraciccaba campus (ESALQ), Brazil.
Image below: Protest signs associated with the strike on the main building, University of São Paulo, Piraciccaba campus (ESALQ), Brazil
Image below: The encampment of the strikers at the University of São Paulo in front of the main building, Piracicaba campus (ESALQ), Brazil.
Image below: Marcelo Cseh with his motorcycle at the encampment of the strikers at the University of São Paulo, Piracicaba campus (ESALQ), Brazil
Image below: Strikers at the encampment at the University of São Paulo, Piracicaba campus (ESALQ), Brazil
Image below: Strikers at the encampment at the University of São Paulo, Piracicaba campus (ESALQ), Brazil
Image below: Strikers preparing pastelles at the encampment of the strikers at the University of São Paulo, Piracicaba campus (ESALQ), Brazil
Image below: Striker frying pastelles at the encampment of the strikers at the University of São Paulo, Piracicaba campus (ESALQ), Brazil
Click here to view other images of the ESALQ campus in Piracicaba, University of São Paulo, Brazil
Some large format prints (limited edition) are now for sale at Freshwater Studio & Gallery in Missoula, Montana.
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All content © 2014 Marcel Huijser
University of São Paulo, Luiz de Queiroz College of Agriculture, ESALQ
This is where I work now: Departamento de Ciências Florestais (Forest Sciences Department) Universidade de São Paulo, Escola Superior de Agricultura Luiz de Queiroz (ESALQ), Brazil.
Katia Ferraz (see image below) is the professor I work with. She will co-teach the road ecology course. She is a great person to work with and she has been incredibly helpful in navigating bureaucracies.
Image below: The main building (Edificio central) is impressive and has lots of history inside it. The stained glass window is just one of the features.
Images below: Halls in the main building (Edificio central), the University of São Paulo, Piraciccaba campus (ESALQ), Brazil
Click here to view other images of the ESALQ campus in Piracicaba, University of São Paulo, Brazil
Some large format prints (limited edition) are now for sale at Freshwater Studio & Gallery in Missoula, Montana.
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All content © 2014 Marcel Huijser