People and Landscapes of São Jose dos Ausentes

The State of the Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil, presents a rich landscape with various natural elements, folloied of an extensive variety of flora and wild fauna, that composes and identifies to the land of "gaucho". With the gradual use for the man, these characteristics are gradually disappearing, giving place almost that exclusively to a landscape of antrópics, nature in constant transformation, forceing in systematic way the tenuous line it natural balance of our ecosystem s. Given the inexorabilidade of this action, attention to the spreading of possessing environment regions must be given to special greater that congregate the natural monuments that serve as last representative redoubt of the native flora and fauna.Beyond the occupations of these natural spaces, the problematic one of the predatory tourism exists that, carried through of eventual form or systematic, it causes deep damages to the weak biological extract that the ecosystems still preserve.
The City of Is Jose dos Ausentes, situated in the northeast extremity of the State of the RS, is a privileged place for the nature. They are fields, bushes of araucária, canyons, rivers and streams with waters cleans, decorated with a limpid atmosphere more than the 1200 meters above of the level of the sea. It blunts as a place of landscapes excellency, inserted in the complex of the riograndense fisionomy. The main economic activities are cattle extensive and the agriculture, consisting of orchards of apple trees and plantations of pinnus that they substantiate the industria lumber of the region. These activities still are carried through in small scale, not constituting an immediate danger to the environment, that remains almost unbroken.

In this perspective, the Federal University of the Rio Grande Do Sul, through the Photograph Center of the College of Midia and Librarianship (FABICO), comes in such a way executing systematic photographic documentation of the City, including the natural redoubts, how much the activities of the people of São Jose dos Ausentes, having as main approach the plasticities, light and atmospheres that personalize environments with its elements. The collection, processing, storage and spreading of photographic images of São Jose dos Ausentes, objective the development of the ecological tourism and the awareness of the population of this City, proporcinada through expositions, workshops and lectures, that place in evidence the importance of the preservation of its environment.

The region where if it points out, for its natural beauty and level of preservation is a species of ecological sanctuary, located the a thousand and two hundred meters above of the level of the sea, is where it is the "Monte Negro" , higher peak of the State of the RS, with 1.403 meters. This high plateau, consisting of fields, canyons, rivers, streams, sangas and cascades, consists in a peculiar region, as a biological reserve, congregating a vast genetic bank, the open sky.

Another point of prominence of the region, consists in the fact of being the place where if the temperatures lowest of the State of the RS register, with the occurrence of frosts and snowstorms in the winter, to the side of amenas temperatures in the summer. This, added the too much natural beauties, converts it into a tourist potential , still not explored.

The material produced in elapsing of the years of execution of this Project, is being divulged through itinerantes photographic expositions that cover the State of the RS, since 28/09/96. The evaluation of the initial results justified the signature of an Accord between the City and the Federal University of the Rio Grande Do Sul, considered for the College of Media and Librariashp in 1997.

In this work, the photograph, considered initially as simple visual register, in a perspective of university extension, passed to be glimpsed as scientific register, and even though as main object of research, from the use of methods and scientific techniques, since the definition of objectives, attainments, processing and after-processings, until differentiated forms of analysis and spreading of the executed photographic works. In this line, it was opted to a boarding to multidiscipline, that it includes searched theoretical references in the Semiologia, Visual and Ambient Anthropology, Ecology, Sociology, Ambient, Botanical Education and Zoology, among others. Specifically in the Photograph area, as research project, it includes elements extracted of Chemistry, through experimentations with Analogical Photograph, high resolution of images, colorizações of fotossensíveis materials in color, black-and-white and use of inverse color photograph processings. Moreover, the project includes the inquiry in Digital Photograph, whose given they are being converted into applicatory of multimedia, specifically with the maintenance of a site in the InterNet, as well as the production of CD-ROMs of spreading and didactic-pedagogical