Artist Insights: Sam Abell's sloth photograph from "Amazonia"

Photographer Sam Abell discusses his encounter with a female, three-toed sloth during his photography expedition to the Amazon. "Amazonia," a traveling exhibition, organized by JSMA executive director Jill Hartz, documents one of the Earths remaining natural ecosystems the headwaters of the Amazon River in Peru. Over a series of years, beginning in 2003, noted National Geographic photographer Sam Abell traveled along the Amazon taking photographs of its wild beauty. The resulting images by Abell and his colleague, Torben Nissen, a noted wildlife photographer and experienced guide, provide rare insight into a remote and untouched landscape and the creatures that inhabit its dangerous rainforest and waters. Through their photographs and Abells first-hand commentary, we experience the challenges and epiphanies of their journey and come to respect the power of the Amazon and its inestimable value to life on this planet.