Sussuarana and I

Sussuarana in the Serra da Capivara, Piauí state, northeastern Brazil. Photo: Adriano Gambarini/1996

Adriano Gambarini

— Don’t stay down, because they confuse with animal…

It was the only sentence that that backwoodsman from Piauí spoke, after hours there, on the lookout, waiting for that Sussuarana to come out of the thicket where he was untouched.

My desire for the right shot was so great that I placed the tripod almost on the ground line. I wanted to photograph him at eye level; I wanted to capture the strength that only these animals, at the top of the food chain, possess. I wanted to simply observe and get lost in that hypnotic gaze. The heavy telephoto lens, the dim light in that big place in the late afternoon, the low speed, the film ‘pulled’ 2 ½ stops. I had to stay put.

He came walking towards us. He stopped, looked suspiciously around. I just didn’t look at him except through the lens, I didn’t want to miss any movement and at the same time I wanted to observe each one. Just admire, really. Just belong.

As for time, once again master of ourselves, I don’t know how it passed. We stood there, looking at each other, while the backwoodsman, standing behind me, breathed heavily. And I crouched down, barely making a sound, barely blinking. My finger wanted to photograph the decisive moment, that eternal Bressonian moment that existed between the 36 simple poses of a film.

It took a few more steps and I was able to make the right click. The paw in the air. Head down. The piercing gaze.

He stopped soon after, lost his curiosity and went down to a thicket in the middle of the humid caatinga between the rock walls. As he came, so he went, as all things in life are. Fleeting and eternal. The paradox of the lived moment, the image’s decisive instant. What remains are the stories traced in our memories.