10 Must-Follow Brazilian Instagram Accounts

Mostly walls, windows and people on the streets of Brazil, Flavia Barros Aneci’s bright, cheerful, up-lifting Instagram account showcases the colorful character of Brazil. With images that not only highlight the vibrancy of the nation’s metropolises but also manage to capture the wonderful zest for life of the people that reside there, Aneci’s account is one definitely worth following should you ever need to be perked up during a grey day.
© Flavia Barros Aneci

Cesar Ovalle is a 35-year-old photographer who resides in São Paulo. His Instagram feed is dominated by cityscapes and urban architecture — though taken from some unusual perspectives that makes for truly fascinating images that leave you wondering how they were captured. For example, he photographs reflections in mirrors and puddles then twists, distorts and blurs his images, focusing on line and shape as well as the relationship between shadow and light. You can’t help but be drawn in.

Paulo Delvalledescribes himself as a visual storyteller. Indeed, his unique, beautiful and completely compelling images seem to hold a more profound significance and hold a deeper meaning than is ever elucidated to the viewer. Delvalle is rather well traveled, having ventured from Adu Dhabi to London to Toronto to San Francisco, though many of his images are devoted to his native Brazil, particularly the awe-inspiring, breathtaking, beautiful city of Rio de Janeiro.

Fabs Grassi is a Brazilian portrait photographer. He captures his (mostly female, and nude) subjects with great sensitivity, representing them as beautiful, delicate and fragile in images that are sensual yet in no way obscene. When he is not working with models, Grassi takes to the streets to capture city dwellers about their everyday lives — outside clubs, shopping, at train stations, drinking with friends, etc. His candid, spontaneous photographs are as beautiful and thought-provoking as his studio shoots.

With an exceptional sense of creativity and artistry, Danny Zappa is able to make seemingly mundane, rather unextraordinary objects completely captivating and beautiful — from a mound of yellow tic-tacs to an open umbrella, via wall tiles, spray paint cans, stairways and concrete apartment blocks. Zappa has an eye for pattern, observing and capturing the neat line and shapes of such objects so perfectly. The resulting images are almost like optical illusions.

Because Brazil wouldn’t be Brazil without its clan of world-famous supermodels — of which Gisele Bundchen is arguably the greatest of all (as stated by Naomi Campbell and Claudia Schiffer themselves). For over a decade, Bundchen has been the highest paid model in the world and has walked for every designer imaginable, from Chanel to Victoria’s Secret, as well as having been a cover girl for Elle, W and Harper’s Bazaar to name but a few. Far from pretentious, Bundchen has an endearing sense of humor, apparent on her Instagram, which provides an insight into her professional and personal world.

Alexandre Urch is a photographer with great sensitivity, perceptiveness and sonder. He mostly captures the ordinary lives of quite ordinary people going about their daily business — either passengers waiting at their airport, commuters on the underground on their way to work, or even children sleeping. Urch is something of a sports fan too and was particularly active at the 2014 World Cup in his native Brazil, during which he so wonderfully captured — often with a touch of humor — the passion of the country’s football fanatics as they watched the tournament matches.

Anna Leti Cohen’sInstagram is simply stunning, which is no surprise given that she is an official Instagram ambassador and community manager. Her account is awash with watercolor sunset skies and panoramic beach views at dusk, which serve to promote Brazil has a destination as much as it does Instagram as a social media platform.

Tato Villanova toys cleverly with light and darkness, creating shadowy, sun-speared pictures that are his trademark. Villanova explores rural and urban Brazil, finding interesting locales for shoots such as train tracks, cave mouths and derelict, abandoned buildings. He also plays with perspective, taking images at interesting angles that distort objects.

Renata Pedrosa boasts some truly remarkable and awe-inspiring images of the natural world, from incredibly sharp underwater photographs of coral life to swarms of fish, turtles and seals. Pedrosa also takes some stunning images of her home nation — mostly cerulean blue skies, crystal clear waters and palm-fringed beaches — as well as documenting her travels across South America, having most recently visited Bolivia.