Lost Flamingos in the Cloud Forest
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Prize
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PhotographerPat Swain, United States
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Website
“Lost Flamingos in the Cloud Forest” is an exploration of beauty out-of place and awkwardness for survival. The moody, inland environment of the Cloud Forest (Costa Rica) is the backdrop for these misplaced, lone, beach birds. The flamingos have gone awry and are defenseless, vulnerable, and barely surviving. The phone lines or other hints of civilization emphasize this painful custody to an ‘internal’ space rather then to its natural, external habitat of ‘open’ skies, beaches and large bodies of water. The flamingo’s sculptural forms and loud pink colors are incongruous, odd, mystifying within the Cloud Forest’s sullen landscape.
The landscapes were taken in the Cloud Forest and the flamingos in other parts of Costa Rica. These elements were then composited in Photoshop.
(Note: Cloud forests are unique highland forests characterized by 100% humidity. A significant portion of their precipitation is derived from the surrounding clouds and mist. As a result of the moisture abundance, cloud forests maintain tremendous biodiversity. The Cloud Forest in Costa Rica consists of jungles, forests, fields, volcanoes, and towns.)
