Sometimes a photograph holds more meaning than can be seen at first glance. I took this shot back in 2007 and hadn’t paid much attention to it. Another photograph was chosen as my first pick so this one remained un flagged or colour coded. This morning I was grazing over photos looking for a fresh view on my material and stopped to have a closer look at this one showing above. It wasn’t until I looked a little deeper into the shadows that I realized the story present when I photographed it. I shot this on Punta Espinosa in the Galapagos Islands. As we all know, the Galapagos is the birth place of Charles Darwin’s crazy idea of Evolution. What I didn’t realize till now was that this little lizard looking out to sea has a bird as his shadow. The theory states that birds evolved from reptiles. It didn’t dawn on me until now that this little lizard was a reflection of that theory as he gazes out to sea. Otherwise a simple image, it has evolved into one that has a story. Photography started as a means to record reality. It wasn’t until Photographers such as Henri Cartier-Bresson propelled the idea of telling a story through the photograph. When we are looking for an scene to capture, we must not forget to look into the shadows as they hold as much visual weight as your subject. Sometimes this happens without us realizing it! And so evolution continues right under our noses.
