South American Pictures is the name Marion and Tony Morrison have given to their archive of images and life-work of writing, photography, research and TV film making in Latin America. Between them they have written over 60 books and contributed to many hundreds more.

Their interests take them to many parts of the continent meeting people and understanding the local environment through its history and archaeoleogy. In recent years oceans and rainforests have been high on their non-stop schedule. Here Marion is on the shore of the Ilha de Santa Catarina, in southern Brasil and Tony is in rainforest bordering the Rio Acre in western Amazonia.

The images are managed electronically and since 2003 the emphasis has been on files from digital cameras. The files of archival works such as engravings or early photographs are kept as hi-res scans. From 2004 all Tony and Marion's photography has been digital.

The South American Pictures Archive is known worldwide and as well as photos from Tony and Marion it includes others from forty associates. It has become one of the most comprehensive collections of its kind. If you do not see the subject you are looking for send an e-mail or SKYPE.

Some milestones along the way

Marion and Tony met in La Paz Bolivia in 1963 when Tony was an independent producer making TV films for the BBC. Marion was working with a United Nations Andean programme and was based in a village near the shore of Lake Titicaca.

A year earlier an around-the-world journey driving overland with five friends from the University of Bristol in 1960/61 had taken Tony to South America for the first time. Here they are seen crossing the equator in Ecuador on their way north to the USA.

Now more than forty years of specialising in Latin America has given him the chance to study subjects such as the environment and perhaps unexpectedly, the Nasca Lines on the desert of Peru.  

Nasca, Peru - sometimes written as Nazca

Back in 1963 the curious desert markings were the subject of his first solo film for television. It was at that time he met Maria Reiche the German mathmetician and recluse who was living alone at the edge of the desert. Over the years they became close friends and Tony's book Mystery of the Nasca Lines (1986), documents her life to the point when ill-health forced her to give up her solitary existence. Tony made three TV films about the Nasca mystery — Mystery on the Desert [1963 BBC] Pathways to the Gods [1978 BBC and Bavaria Television]. Pathways to the Gods 2 [Dutch TV ] which together with his widely published book Pathways to the Gods [1978] proposed the most accepted answer to the riddle. The research was covered by German [Bavarian] Television.

His other films cover a variety of topics from the environment to the history of the continent. At the suggestion of wildlife consultant, the late Ian Grimwood who realised the potential of the Manú forests in eastern Peru, Tony and Marion filmed there a year after it was set aside as a national park. A Park In Peru for BBC was the first televison film to be made in the Manú and was also screened at the Second International Congress of the World Wildlife Fund [WWF].

The Steamship Great Britain / S.S Great Britain Over a span of two years, a totally different conservation project took them southward to the Falkland / Malvinas Islands to film the people. the abundant wildlife, and the salvage of the Steamship Great Britain. The Great Britain, the brainchild of the Victorian engineer Isambard Kingdom Brunel was launched in 1843.

After the rusting hull was lifted from the shores of the Falkland Islands it was towed back to Bristol, England on a floating pontoon. The Great Iron Ship a 50 minute documentary for BBC TV was a crowd puller and when the old ship was towed into Bristol docks over a hundred thousand people turned out to watch. The original hull is now in Bristol and almost fully restored. Marion's newspaper reporting of the salvage operation in the Falkland Islands /Islas Malvinas was a scoop seen around the world.

In 1980 Tony directed the award winning Three Miles High TV film, a railway journey linking Lima. Peru and La Paz, Bolivia. The film was in the first series of BBC's 'Great Railway Journeys' and featured the late Miles Kington as the 'traveller'.

Also from these early years came two other books.    Land Above the Clouds, published by Andre Deutsch, accompanied a Survival special film with Anglia Television [London] covering wildlife of the Andes and conservation. The Andes [1974] for TimeLife books was translated in many languages and followed a commissioned journey from the Caribbean to the distant south of the continent.

Two books of the 1980's focused on women travellers in Amazonia.  Lizzie, A Victorian Lady's Amazon Adventure published by the BBC, and made into a TV film featured actress Maria Aitken as the modern day traveller and was based on the personal letters of a young woman who travelled the length of the Amazon river with her husband during the the infamous rubber exploitation of the late 19th century.  

 Margaret Mee, In Search of Flowers of the Amazon Forests [Nonesuch Expeditions, 1988] has quickly become a classic. The story behind the book can be found on another site. www.nonesuchexpeditions.com This site includes clips from film taken during Margaret's final journey in 1988 planned and arranged by South American Pictures and Nonesuch Expeditions

Now into the 2000's

Tony's latest books are about the Great Britain [2011] and Peru and Qosqo, Navel of the World covering the history and wonders of Cuzco, the spiritual centre of the ancient Inca /Inka empire. Qosqo the is the Inca / Inka name for Cuzco and the book looks at the origin of the many ancient descriptions for parts of the city.    

Peru, Country of Contrasts [2003] is an illustrated guide to the enormously varied landscape and history of Peru.  This book and Qosqo were created in Brasil and published in Peru in Spanish and English editions

Marion has written more than sixty educational books covering almost all the countries on the archive list. Her topics include general information, history, geography, economics, people and for countries with immense pre-Columbian history she covers the archaeology. Some books have required special research. One was in Cuba where she compared life in a village and the capital, Havana. See - FEATURES - on this site for more on Cuba. Another of Marion's early books looked at family life in the northeast of Brasil / nordeste and this region is one place she has returned to many times.

She contributed extensively to the multi-volume Peoples of the Americas [1999] and now in digital format.  Her most recent projects include Guyana, El Salvador and Nicaragua (2004) and Uruguay, Guatemala, Chile (2006), Costa Rica and Colombia (2007) for publishers in the UK and USA.

Nonesuch Expeditions is a separate website and is dedicated to information on ideas, people and places. As well as Tony's early travels Nonesuch Expeditions holds an archive of photographs of Pusegaon a village in the Deccan of India where Tony and five fellow Bristol graduates were based for studies in 1960. The story of a return visit in 2000 for three members of the team and their wives is covered by A Dream Come True. Marion and Tony with their colleagues were honoured by the village, now a small town, with festivities lasting three days. They were granted Honorary Citizenship and although Pusegaon is far from Latin America they maintain frequent contact through schools and the local Panchayat, [council].

Use Nonesuch Expeditions to see The Margaret Mee Archive and The Pusegaon Archive

MARGARET MEE AND THE MOONFLOWER will be an e-book dedicated to the story of the Moonflower, a cactus of the Amazon rainforest which flowers just once on one night each year. The story was devised by Tony in 1987 and has been brought up to date with original audio and video.

www.southamericanpictures.com