2005 Banff Mountain Photography Competition

Best PhotoMountain Environment: "The Red Queen's Forest" by Patrick Stoll of Boise, Idaho

"I often drive past this poplar tree farm when traveling from my home in Idaho to the Oregon coast," Stoll said in a statement. "Something about it always seems a bit surreal and somewhat sinister. Maybe it's the ever-present darkness under the dense canopy of leaves or the way the parallel rows of trees create a shutter effect as one drives past; the distant vanishing point blinks on and off but seems to remain in the same location.

"It reminds me of the Red Queen's comment to Alice in Lewis Carroll's Through the Looking Glass: 'Now, here, you see, it takes all the running you can do, to keep in the same place.' In evolutionary biology, the Red Queen Hypothesis states that a species must constantly be moving (adapting and evolving) in order to stay in the same place (remain in existence). For me, the tree farm picture symbolizes a future where the only remaining forests are those that can adapt to the selective pressure of commercialization."

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