Capturing Costa Rica & Panama Canal
There's something about Costa Rica that feels alive in every direction. The country holds one of the highest densities of plant and animal species on Earth, and you feel that the moment you step into the forest. Photographing wildlife there is fast and instinctive. Howler monkeys, spider monkeys, and white-faced capuchins move through the canopy overhead while scarlet macaws cut across layers of green, and moments appear and disappear before you can think twice. I focused on reacting rather than deliberating, shooting continuously and letting the forest reveal itself on its own terms.
In the Emberá community, everything shifted. The Emberá are a river-based people with deep roots in the rainforest, and they maintain their own language, spiritual traditions, and a connection with nature reflected in everything from their art to their daily lives. The pace slowed, the noise dropped away. I spent more time observing and waiting, looking for quiet human moments. The community's craftsmanship was instantly recognizable, from vibrant woven baskets to body art made with jagua, a natural black dye derived from fruit. It was one of those rare experiences where you leave with more questions than when you arrived, in the best possible way.
The Panama Canal felt like the complete opposite. Stretching roughly 80 kilometers and connecting the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans, the canal uses a system of locks that raise and lower ships 26 meters to navigate the elevation of the Continental Divide. Everything there was scale, structure, and precision. Massive ships threading through tight concrete channels, water rising and falling in controlled stages, every element engineered with clear intent. Each lock chamber measures over 300 meters long and 33 meters wide, and watching a container ship fill that space almost exactly felt genuinely surreal. I shot wide to lean into the geometry and proportion, letting the sheer scale do the talking. After the density of the rainforest and the stillness of the Emberá community, the canal felt almost abstract, like moving through a space that exists purely to function.
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