Magic at Malinowsky

Magic at Malinowsky

Photograph by Rick Stanley

Gabby Salazar is a 26-year-old photographer from Greensboro, North Carolina. She has traveled throughout North America and to over 15 countries to take photographs. Her work as a Young Explorers grantee with a focus on tropical conservation led her to Peru to work with the Amazon Conservation Association to document the creation of the Manu-Tambopata Conservation Corridor. Salazar worked at over 15 sites along the corridor to document community-based, government-based, and foreign conservation efforts.

“We arrived at Malinowsky Guard Station, a checkpoint for entry into the Tambopata National Reserve, in the afternoon. After settling in for ten minutes, we grabbed our camera gear and headed right out on the trail.

“It turns out there’s only one trail here and it’s about two miles long. Otherwise, we’re blocked in by a river on one side and dense forest everywhere else. We started out on the trail and had a magical experience within the first 500 meters. As I was photographing a patch of mushrooms, Rick noticed that a blue morpho butterfly was hanging around. It’s pretty common to see a morpho in the forest—a flash of iridescent blue gliding down the trail and disappearing into the landscape just after you score a fleeting glimpse. However, this morpho was circling us and coming closer and closer. After a few minutes, Rick called out to me when he found the morpho on his shirt and then on his cheek. Our clothes were soaked with sweat from a boat ride in the hot sun, and the butterfly was clearly attracted to the salt covering our skin.

“We took a few fun photos of the butterfly on our clothes and then Rick got creative—he placed it on my nose. The image above is our favorite from the series because it shows just how big the morpho was. We tried to let the butterfly go after that, but he just kept following us. It was a really magical hour in the jungle with a beautiful creature, and one of my favorite memories from Peru.”