The dense jungles of the Costa Rican cloud forest landscape are often a foggy wonderland.

This is a very simple photograph, with a very bland composition, but I like it nonetheless. I love how the fog is dense enough to give the cloud forest a really heavenly feeling. But what I like most is the way this photograph shows how valuable real estate is in these tropical jungles. It’s not just a place on the ground that plants are looking for, it’s far past that. Every plant branch also becomes real estate for other plants to live. There are mosses and bromeliads clinging to every branch, trying to get as much sunlight as possible. This phenomenon is even more exaggerated in the flatter, wetter, traditional tropical rain forests of the lowlands, but it’s often difficult to portray it in photographs. Here, the fog provides contrast between the different layers of the flora, helping to isolate the epiphytic plants on the branches.

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