I have been living in the big, bustling city of Sao Paulo, Brazil for around 9 months now. Only a couple of hours down the road is a stunning paradise though. An escape from the craziness. This is the north coast (Litoral Norte) of Sao Paulo state. This area of Sao Paulo state is a photographers dream. Full of mountains, beaches, jungles and wildlife to photograph.

The forest here is called the Mata Atlantica forest and once covered the whole area of the south of Brazil, Argentina and Paraguay. Only 10% remains these days. The forest contains 20,000 plant species, 40 percent of which are endemic and around almost 950 species of birds. This area also contains the Serra do Mar Mountain Chain, which runs parallel to the Atlantic coast, which make an amazing photo backdrop. The Sao Paulo beaches cover around 400 miles of tropical Atlantic coastline, enticing people from all around to swim, surf and sunbath in the turquoise seas and bask on the golden sands.

I have been travelling the short distance to the Sao Paulo beaches to take photos each week. My particular favourites so far include Camburi beach, Baleia beach, Juquehy beach and most of the Ubatuba region. These all feel like you are in a exotic paradise, full of colourful birds like the Toucan and Parakeet, with amazing jungles and colourful plants. Everywhere you look is a stunning photo. Whether you like surf photography or bird photos or just photos of beautiful sunsets and rises on the beaches with amazing mountain backdrops. Many of the beaches have small rivers running into them. These areas for me are some of my favourite as you have still reflections of the mountains and tropical foliage and they seem to entice many of the tropical birds to them. Another thing I find amazing is that once the December and January holiday season ends you can have the beaches pretty much to yourself to photograph. Anyway hope you like the photos I have taken so far.

See the entire collection.