Over the past two years, Gabriel Eisenband has been on a journey across his home country in order to document for the first time the mostly unknown landscapes of Colombia’s National Parks. The photographs in this limited edition set are part of the work that was commissioned for the preeminent photographic book on the country’s park system, an area that covers 14 million hectares – a total of 12% of the country’s land mass.
Colombia is one of the most biodiverse regions on Earth, with four very distinctive conservation areas: Atlantic, Pacific, Andes, and the vast Orinoquia/Amazonia, which hosts Serranía de Chiribiquete, the largest tropical rainforest national park in the world and an Unesco World Heritage Site.
During the many months of travel, Eisenband went to ever remote areas of the country to photograph the parks, but not simply with documentation in mind. He strove to present an artistic perspective on the country’s dramatic and varied environment, allowing the natural aesthetics of the parks to speak for themselves through the art of his expressive photography.
It is the first time the National Parks are shown in all of their splendor. Eisenband’s powerful portraits of Colombia’s natural landscape assert an urgent reminder to keep these regions of the wild protected – oft-forgotten places of intense beauty and capacity to harbor life.