IN PURSUIT OF
It’s a Sunday noon. I’m at the San José airport, looking out of the massive glass façade awaiting my flight. Light and water meet and a rainbow graces the sky — as though in an implicit promise of the bounty to come, like a bridge between ground reality and lofty dreams. Could this trip be as productive as ever? I’m about to find out.
My previous tours to Costa Rica have been spectacular. After all, the cloud forests of this country, whose name is a somewhat-understated geographical description (Costa Rica literally translates to ‘rich coast’), host a dizzying 500,000 species. There’s more species per unit area here than in any other country on the planet.
Now, as I do every year, I’ve brought with me an eager group of photography enthusiasts, excited by the promise of a bounteous land, stoked by the prospect of portraying its abundance.
We check in to our first destination, and the raw beauty takes me aback as though I were here for the first time. Indeed, if we really look with the heart, photographing wildlife carries with it an inherent promise of uniqueness. No two days are the same in the wild; let along any two years. It’s an ever-shifting, ever-transiting universe — where wonder is the only constant.
The next day we see a magnificent toucan in action. With its outlandishly beautiful bill and vividly contrasting colours, it’s a gorgeous avian subject to photograph, and I’m thrilled the group’s been this fortunate. Amid all the fervent shouting out of settings for the tour participants to nail the pictures, I take a quiet moment to admire it and notice how in the silence of the changing greens of the forest, it’s perched with its bright colours in a defiant devotion to its habitat.
Later, we set out in the Atlantic Lowland Rainforest Range to make images of monkeys, aracaris and Montezuma oropendolas. Watching birds in the wild has always made me understand better why they symbolise freedom in the world of humans: their simple act of flying means boundlessness to us. Perhaps disregarding gravity and owning its share of the sky makes a bird relatable to those of us who wish to outdo limitations and seek what lies beyond them.
In the Central Volcanic Range Cloud Forest, I have always loved photographing macaws in flight against the lush-green forest backgrounds as well as on attractive
perches. They are a riot of colours! I’ve also made images of them when it was raining and it was as though different elements were in conversation with the vivacious hues of this bird — in the soft wetness and a gentle touch of the drizzle.
Halfway down the tour and we have arrived at the highly enjoyable task of photographing hummingbirds, with our multi-flash set-ups right on the lodge premises. The set-up includes some attractive native flowers that entice the birds with their nectar, which allows us to make some stunning images that depict their glorious details. Hummingbirds flit about swiftly, teasing and taunting our vision and our reflexes. They are like little uprisings on their own as, in their infinite innocence; they challenge us to record the marvel of their surreality.
In certain parts of this wonderland, the forest rumble becomes a roar – in the magnificent waterfalls that descend with dignity and gravitas. I amuse myself thinking that in the verdant fabric of the forest, these white threads exist to complete the wreaths of green.
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