Unwritten, but true and pure, the law of the animal kingdom is that any creature can be king, for a day or for a million years. Not by being the strongest, or the most intelligent, but by surviving, outliving the odds of an ever-changing realm to make it long enough to make a lot of love. All colors, skins, and shapes are fashionable and smart designs here, welcome and necessary to live the equilibrium together. Equipped with tricks for challenges and instincts for fears, all keep the grand apparatus in motion. Slaughter never had a place in this order, only the kill. But the way it was, it is no more. One predator takes it all without even making an appearance at the murder scene, a convenient alibi written on a supermarket receipt. Pulverizing the bedrock evolutionary course of action and reaction with tools of ignorance, indifference and cruelty, man is now mass-manufacturing unnatural extinction events, including his own. When nature finds a way, like it always does, elegantly, and life bounces back in beautiful abundance, will we still be, a witness to see?
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collections
photos | animals
Evolutionary Kaleidoscope
all over the place: nature's blueprints
Abracadabra, the monkey is now human. Evolution, nature's little magic trick, you look, but you don't see how it works, and then you sit there all bedazzled and stupid, clapping because it’s fantastic and you don't get it. see more
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a glimpse
glimpse: UNIMPRESSED | Self-what now? Self-drive safari? That didn’t sound right. I mean we’re talking wild animals here, above all the ones with wheels for legs. Weren’t these African national parks afraid that some ruthless safari human ran over a lion or a dung beetle? Nope. And wouldn’t the quadrupeds attack cars? Yebo. Ask my buddy how he learned that lionesses can open car doors with their teeth. Or my other buddy how his parent’s friends figured that a car’s hood can serve as an elephant’s chair. Or let me draw you a front row picture of a charging elephant, forcing an entire lineup of vehicles into a comical reverse-parade. But the DIY-freedom is hard to pass up, and as long as the interaction is respectful, the grey giants are utterly unimpressed with humans and their toy cars, ambling in front of these most curious intruders without a worry in the world.
glimpse: REV | "Revving the engine is enough to lure them," explained our captain. Then he fed them anyway. Right off Belize's Caye Caulker, nurse sharks live alongside stingrays, eagle rays, manatees and other neighbors in an oceanic vicinity known as Shark Ray Alley. Local boat operators use bait in preparation of a touristic snorkel encounter with the harmless animals in the shallow and crystalline Caribbean waters. The dubious feeding practice has conditioned the sharks to line up in front of the boats by the mere sound of an outboard and raises the question of how this unnatural dependence and behavior will affect the animals in the long run.
glimpse: SENTIENCE BORDER | Looking down from the lofty top of the food chain, all other animals seem to cower at our feet. Fellow evolutionary contenders serve us as food, entertainment, company, decoration, or guinea pigs without having a say in it. That none of them speak our language is convenient because we probably wouldn’t like what they’d have to say about being at our disposal. Animals can’t tell us about their experience but reading between the lines it’s easy to tell that many are sentient and some even self-aware in ways similar to human consciousness. The border we draw between sentient and insentient beings is arbitrary and mostly dictated by our comfort – a conscience just feels lighter when the ocean creature we cage for home décor doesn't feel. Yet, while the sentience of fish is still disputed, science has continuously revised the sentience border with concluded findings like the Cambridge Declaration on Consciousness, so that the circle of acknowledged perceiving and feeling animals has grown a lot bigger. Of course, humans feel pretty indifferent about that.
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Addo Elephant Park / South Africa · 2017 bird's eye view
Kerala / India · 2015 beetle extravaganza
Tokyo / Japan · 2016 Koinnichiwa
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related
photos | essays
Disposable Nature
Man emptying his convenience store
Walks into nature like a convenience store, grabs a bunch of animals and trees, a few liters of ocean, until the shelves are empty. see more
countries | Central America | Belize