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Friday, 16 September 2011 09:26
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Luciana Whitaker has never let boundaries get in her way. Born and raised in Rio de Janeiro, she started taking pictures professionally for New York Newsday. Upon returning to Brazil, Whitaker worked at Folha de São Paulo, Brazil's largest daily, serving as photo editor at the paper's Rio bureau and covering assignments ranging from urban violence to presidential trips abroad. In 1996, Whitaker hit the road again and headed all the way to Barrow, Alaska, the northernmost town in the U.S., where she lived many years among Iñupiat Eskimos, raised a family, and documented Native culture, including the traditional whale hunt.
She now makes her home in Brazil and shoots regularly for newspapers, magazines, news agencies and corporate clients in the U.S., Europe and Brazil.
Whitaker has won a number of prizes and honors, including the Millennium Photo Project Judge's Award Photo, in 2000, and the Folha de São Paulo Journalism Award for best published photo in 1993. Her photography was selected for Photo España's 2010 portfolio review and is featured in collections at the Smithsonian and the Iñupiat Heritage Museum. She has published in The Times, Los Angeles Times, Paris Match, and Newsweek. Among the many books she has worked on is her 2008 title, "11 anos no Alasca" ("11 Years in Alaska,"), an autobiographical journal with over 200 pictures on life among the Iñupiaq. In this essay for Brazil in Focus, Whitaker crosses borders again, venturing to the Complexo da Maré, a giant slum complex in Rio, where favela kids learn to box and to dream.
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