Episode 6: Devil’s Paradise

A German Photographer named Albert Frisch was responsible for some of the first photographs taken in the Upper Amazon.  When I started looking deeper into Albert Frisch’s story I fell into a rabbit hole.  The more I learned, the deeper the hole got.  When the story did come to a close, I had discovered much more than I ever imagined about this photographer, the native people of Brazil, and our complex history with a very special plant.

Albert Frisch, Résultat d'une expédition photographique sur le Solimões ou Alto Amazonas et Rio Negro, No. 68 – Fabrication de Caoutchouc, 1867-68, printed in 1869