# THE IBERO MAGAZINE

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I have studied the use of wild-animal species as emblems across many cultures around the world; this confirmed for me that big cats and eagles are the most admired—we have appropriated their attributes through a universe of brands, logos, coats of arms, and standards. In the Americas the jaguar is the most powerful symbol, and it is found only on this continent. Only the Asian tiger and the African lion exceed it in size.

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Until recently, seeing a jaguar in the wild was extremely rare. For forty years I looked for the chance to photograph one, traveling through the jungles, mangroves, and rivers of Mexico, Central, and South America. In my dreams I always pictured it crossing a river. It was precisely in June 2010, in Brazil’s Mato Grosso, that I saw one for the first time.

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There I devoted five months to documenting the intimate life of this great predator at the confluence of two large rivers, the Cuiabá and the Piquiri. My years of waiting to see and photograph a swimming jaguar finally came true one morning as we were heading upstream on the Piquiri. The boatman—or pilotero in Portuguese—spotted a male out of the corner of his eye amid the dense vegetation at the river’s edge. He immediately swung our small craft around and whispered, “La onça wants to cross.”

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We waited on the opposite bank. The jaguar soon came down and slipped into the water. That limited its movements, allowing us to draw near. From that first instant I kept the shutter pressed until the camera would fire no more—it had to “digest” a flood of images born of the encounter’s excitement. Only a few seconds passed, yet later, when we found ourselves just meters from Panthera onça and the camera still refused to shoot again, the despair and helplessness were overwhelming. The last two frames were captured at very close range, just before the jaguar vanished upon reaching the far shore.

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Fifteen years later, with the advent of artificial intelligence (AI), I wanted to grasp the scope of this tool and the risks it poses to documentary and environmental photography. I asked one of the AI programs on my computer to recreate an image of a jaguar swimming at close range, in profile, moving from left to right—exactly as I had seen it. I wrote no more than one or two sentences to describe the picture I wanted the program to generate. Astonishingly, in less than ten seconds it offered me several alternatives. One of them is the image I present here, alongside the one I made in 2010.

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I will not reveal which of the two is mine and which was created by A.I. My aim is to leave the reader in doubt—an uncertainty that may mirror the world we are heading toward, a choice we have made or accepted without truly realizing what we stand to lose.

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We have been here before. When Photoshop arrived, the public began to doubt and question the truthfulness of photographs, especially when published images failed to clarify whether they had been digitally altered—whether they were authentic or, to use an even stronger word, “virgin.”

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Four years after that trip I published a large-format art book featuring many of the images I captured during those five months: Las Onças Pintadas de Río Cuiabá (onças pintadas is Portuguese for “jaguar”). In it I recount the most memorable moments from my 180 sightings involving 40 different jaguars—one of the most treasured experiences of my life.

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None of the photographs was manipulated; some appear in black and white because I felt that better conveyed the essence of the place and of the species. In my world, knowing the story behind each picture is as important as the image itself. If we fail to value photographs created directly in the natural world and instead focus on applauding those generated artificially, we will lose our way—we will cease to feel wonder when we look toward the horizon.

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https://revistas.ibero.mx/ibero/

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https://revistas.ibero.mx/ibero/uploads/volumenes/82/pdf/61.pdf