King Vulture
Boca Tapada
Six days of nonstop sun and strong wind leading up to this photo session meant long days of driving and cursing the forecast, empty memory cards, and a recurring thought of "I'd rather be at home ripping up twenty-dollar bills". Costa Rica's rainforests can be paradoxical at times, as the birds really are everywhere, but alas, as the prefix "photo" implies, photography has an Achilles heel that other parts of the art world don't need to deal with, or at least, not in the same way. Simply put, without good light, a camera is a paperweight, and sunny and windy conditions in the tropical rainforest are about as bad as it can get for picture taking. Those smooth, delicate backgrounds we spend hours looking and planning for turn into tangles of blurry lines and ugly circular highlights. But at last, on my final afternoon before getting back on the plane, a small cloud shelf parked itself in front of the dreaded spotlight in the sky for just enough time, and I was able to get into a field with some approachable king vultures. The fine details in the bird's feathers came back out, the background went from a wiry mess to smooth shades of green, and for a few moments, photography happened.