My first trip to the tropics changed my outlook on nature. From my native Holland, where nature is dormant part of the year and restrained by a temperate climate the rest, I flew to equatorial Surinam, where I stepped into a world of hot color and green abundance. A small plane dropped me at an airstrip cleared from the forest; a canoe ride away was an isolated camp in the middle of the jungle. Real jungle. This was part of the biggest expanse of equatorial rainforest in the world the Amazon Basin, which stretches, even today, across an area the size of Western Europe.

I lay awake in a hammock that first night, unable to sleep because of the frogs. In Holland I was accustomed to hearing a few frogs at a time. In Surinam that evening I heard hundreds simultaneously-tinkling, honking, and whistling in a tapestry of sound unlike anything I had ever heard. The chaotic calls of countless individuals merged into mesmerizing patterns of pulses and crescendos that vibrated through the night. It was my first experience with the rhythms of the jungle and the complexities of life which those sounds represented. That night the seeds for this book were sown...

INTRODUCTION

WATER + LIGHT

COLOR + CAMOUFLAGE

ANARCHY + ORDER

FORM + EVOLUTION

CAMERA IN THE JUNGLE

IMAGE INDEX

CONSERVATION

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

ABOUT THE BOOK/BIOGRAPHIES