Christmas Eve 2005 I went in a taxi to Sugar Loaf Mountain.  In reality this means arriving at the rock in front  of Sugar Loaf and taking a cable car up to Sugar Loaf itself. Unfortunately the cable car was shut. Nevertheless, a herd of local taxi drivers were waiting nearby. After some careful negotiations, I ended up being taken up to Santa Terese (and then on to Corcovado) From Santa Terese, I took this shot of Sugar Loaf and Botafogo. The hills in the background are known as Niteroi, I’m told.

Cristo Redentor in Rio. I like the feel of this print. Having been to Hong  Kong and taken photos from above Victoria Peak, I never thought the view could be topped. That was until I stood underneath this statue and looked out across Rio De Janeiro. I shot this with the sun behind the statue to give the final image  an ethereal sense. By coincidence it was a cloudy day and so the sky acted as a great big diffuser.

The taxi ride from the airport took about 25 minutes. I was immediately struck by the slums. Upon leaving the airport, the Favelas were soon apparent dotted either side of the made arterial road into the city. The occasional wasteland, a welcome break from the carpet of shanty town housing, were full of young children kicking mishapen footballs.

I strained to look out of the window of the taxi, searching for the famous landmark of Christ the Redeemer, as we entered the city. Suddenly it came into view. Small – much smaller than I had anticipated – but majestic and proud, the statue would look over me throughout my time in this city.

We passed through a tunnel on the way to Copacabana beach when I heard my first Rio gunshots. It was probably a car backfiring I remember thinking. It wasn’t. The reports on the nightly news highlighted Rio’s problems with guns only too well.

Copacabana is where I stayed. Right on the famous boulevard. At the top of this beach you pass a headland before arriving at Ipanema. Along one side of Copacabana are bars, restaurants and hotels. One of the more famous is the Copacabana Hotel. A big beautiful looking, colonial style affair, the hotel is a throw back to another era and another time. In many ways, I felt this stunning building was a little incongruous to the rest of the Avenida Atlantica which seemed a little run down and rough around the edges. After dark , the working girls of Rio can be found in bars within 50 yards of this palatial setting. I must admit to feeling a little awkward trekking around this city with expensive photography gear. Around Copacabana, the high number of visible police is a double edged sword. Reasurring and panicking visitors at the same time. The police are here for a reason though as Rio is a city of extremes.

Uber rich live and rub shoulders with the super poor. As your taxi stops for a moment at a red light, two boys walk out

into the road and go through their juggling act for umpteenth time that day. 20 seconds to impress the tourists enough to get some form of tip. Across the road from the Copacabana Palace, I saw two more boys rummaging for food and scraps in the bins. Yet Rio is also an idiosyncratic city. In a landscape of such stunning beauty, it is the poor who live and breathe the breathtaking views of the city from the hilltops, albeit from the squalour of

the slums. The rich, in contrast, remain in the low lying areas of Ipanema and

Barra di Tijuca hemmed in by the Atlantic Ocean and the sprawling Favelas.

The statue stands 39.6 metres (130 feet) tall, weighs 700 tons. I climbed to its base via the funicular railway. This in itself was quite a journey. The trainline winds itself around Corcovado at an impossible angle climbing through the forest. The canopy finally breaks and then suddenly spectacular views of the sprawling great city, favelas climbing skywards clinging to the rugged terrain and then with a twist, the Atlantic Ocean and the famous beaches of Ipanema and Copacabana.

Once off the train, you walk. Climbing stone steps up and up, around the base of the statue and upwards once more. I think in total it took about 35 minutes but in the end it was worth it.