National Geographic Society
French freelance photographer Nicolas Reynard, who had worked for the National Geographic Society several times, died yesterday. The seaplane in which he was traveling crashed in the Negro River near Manaus in northern Brazil. Joel Donnet, also a French photographer, and the pilot, a Brazilian, also died in the accident. Reynard was on assignment for three French magazines.
Reynard, who was based in Paris, photographed the August 2003 National Geographic cover story, "Into the Amazon." For the assignment, he spent three and a half months following an expedition through virgin jungle in Brazil's westernmost Amazon Basin. The expedition gathered information on the territory of the Flecheiro tribe, a remote, uncontacted indigenous people living in the far recesses of the Brazilian Amazon. (Read Reynard's field notes from the assignment.)
Reynard also photographed the September 2003 Adventure magazine story, "The Gabon Experiment." (See photos by Reynard of Gabon, Africa.)
Reynard first worked with National Geographic in 1996, when he provided photographs and wrote almost 70 dispatches for the nationalgeographic.com Web feature Korubo: Expedition Contact. The expedition culminated in the first ever peaceful contact with the hitherto uncontacted Korubo Indians of Brazil.
"He was a friend as well as a photographer, dedicated to both his work and to the people he photographed. We will miss his presence, but he will remain in our hearts," National Geographic Editor in Chief Bill Allen said.
Valerie May is a National Geographic senior editor and former nationalgeographic.com managing editor. She worked with Reynard on the Korubo expedition and remembered him as "exciting, energizing, and fascinating. His enthusiasm brought us to the limits of what was possible with the Korubo Indian story."
The Accident
Daniel Rosenthal, the French honorary consul in Manaus, said the seaplane in which Reynard was traveling yesterday had taken off and landed repeatedly to allow the photographers to shoot. "Suddenly it was gone," he told Agence France Presse. "There was nothing left but the floats."
"The seaplane sank deep in the river, where the waters are murky, and divers took time finding the airplane, which broke in thousands of pieces," local fire chief Franz Alcantara said.
Reynard traveled the world on assignments documenting such diverse subjects as the fall of the Berlin Wall, the gulf war, Caribbean sharks, and stingrays. His work appeared in numerous international magazines, including Life and the New York Times Magazine. He was photo editor-in-chief of the French magazine VSD in 1999.
Reynard is survived by a young daughter. Funeral arrangements are pending.
