AquaLangs

Capuchin monkeys like this one occasionally attack unsuspecting hikers passing through the national park of Cahuita, mugging them en masse for their packed snacks. I once witnessed a French woman foolishly try to feed a biscuit to one while the rest of the gang of tiny apes crept up behind, swarmed her, removed her fanny pack, then escaped into the trees with the box of cookies and her wallet.

This is another image that leads into a discussion of optical dynamics and lens performance. After growing weary of lugging around my 300mm f/2.8 lens on yet another trip to Costa Rica, I left the bulky lens in my hotel and grabbed a 200mm f/4 macro lens instead. Generally speaking, macro lenses project a flat field and are not suitable for telephoto uses. Well aware of this phenomenon, I packed the less cumbersome lens as I headed to the La Marina Zoo near La Fortuna. The radioactive-blur to the right of this lion, is cause for bokeh-bandits to cringe.

Taking a moment to pontificate a bit, I have a great deal of disdain for those who scrutinize bokeh – a Japanese term that describes the appeal of the area surrounding a subject that is not in focus. Originally, this was an expression and tool used by a laudable yet overlooked art movement in Japan, where photographers strove to incorporate the blurred background into the overall composition, sometimes taking over as the subject. Presently, the term has become fodder for online photography forums, esoteric obsessives, and talentless camera geeks. Nonsensical terms like “good bokeh” are as universally useless as “photo quality” – another phrase bandied about by the ignorant, or those who pander to the ignorant.

Returning to this image, the macro lens I used that day exhibited some odd artifacts when racked out to its infinity focus limit as seen in the photograph above. Here, the nervous blur is distracting and does not fit in the context of the rendered scene. I was quickly able to use this flaw to my advantage as can be seen in the following photo where the harsh blur is utilized successfully.

The indigenous Bribri tribe of the southeastern Costa Rica construct some unique and noteworthy hand crafts and carvings. There is amazing book discovered and scanned by Google that shows some of their traditional works including a feather longcoat. Following the construction of these head-to-toe feather garments, it is little wonder why the scarlet macaw is no longer is found in the Talamanaca Mountains.

In my career I have produced a great deal of remote location shots, but producing in-the-jungle product images, (the set of which this shot is part of), without electricity or shelter in 95f/35c degree rainforest heat was a first for me.

The Bribri, an indigenous tribe scattered about the border of Panama and Costa Rica, are forced to rely on the jungle flora like this for survival in a manner that we would refer to as ‘holistic medicine.’ For them this gorgeous plant is simply poor man’s penicillin.

Volcanoes in the tropics often produce black sand beaches right next to white sand ones. Through the brute force of the waves, the sand sometimes blends in patches like this one.

Hiking along the coastline of Cahuita National Park in Costa Rica, I reached forward to pick up a seemingly innocuous piece of trash, a small film-canister sized plastic bottle. Then I saw legs peeking out of the bottom and realized that a crab had made this bit of refuse into its home.

The better image from this moment resides on my hard drive unprinted for now, but the concept still stands here. This symbolizes Costa Rica to a ‘t.’ The “Ticos” have claimed what most of us have thrown away – unspoilt nature. Through large-scale nature reservations and support of eco-tourism ventures, the nation of Costa Rica has preserved large tracts of park land (26% of the nation’s territory), which like this plastic bottle to the crab, is highly functional, protective, rewarding, and ultimately quite homey.