Greater Flamingos are taking off from a wild lagoon of the St Martin island, based in Southern France.
Being normally a migratory bird, it happens that a certain population of Greater Flamingos decides to stay, as it has been the case for those living in Camargue, one of Europe’s largest wetlands, hosting a vegetation variety, but also a  natural wildlife paradise, listed at UNESCO World Heritage site.
They have been breeding there naturally for centuries (back to the Roman times) and according to experts, the Greater Flamingos might be one of the few survivors that will continue to live or to come to this natural reserve, despite the heavy erosion and rising sea levels, due to climate change.

The color of the Greater Flamingos varies according to seasons. Almost white in summer, their plumage becomes flamboyant, with a very pink color during winter time.This is indeed during this season that they courtship displays, to attract their future partner.
Their bright pink color comes from beta-carotene, a red-orange pigment that’s found in high amounts within the algae, brine fly larvae, and brine shrimp that they eat in this wetland environment. As this diet is nearly exclusively carotenoid, the birds have no problem coloring themselves.

This pink color of the water is due to the dunaliella salina, an algae rich in beta-carotene which takes all its intensity from above and especially during the summer time.

Thanks to the natural beauty of this French colorful area, which never ceases to amaze my pupils and together, with my aerial shot, I like creating a confusion between reality and illusion, photography and painting, based on Rothko’s principles: insisting on the primacy of raw emotion, to push the boundaries of form and color, to make photos appear as “painting-like” as possible.