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Real Rainforest, from Canopy to Roots

Jungle is one of the hardest places to paint convincingly. Painted jungles are often too green and too flat. These jungle reference photos show real tropical rainforest at four heights: from a cable car above the canopy, from a skywalk in the trees, from the forest floor and from the river. Start with the Ancient Australian Rainforest Aerial View (644 photos) and Australian Tropical Rainforest (269 photos from the ground).

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The green wall is only at the edge

From a boat or a road, a rainforest looks like a solid wall of leaves. Inside, it is often much more open. In the Queensland rainforest that AustraliaRef photographed, only about 15% of the light reaches the ground, so even grass cannot grow there. The dense growth is at the edges and in gaps where a tree has fallen. If your jungle scene is packed with bushes everywhere, it will feel wrong to anyone who has walked in one. AustraliaRef photographed the Queensland rainforest from four heights, so you can see this for yourself.

Four heights, four views

Trees that eat trees

A strangler fig starts life on another tree, then grows down and around it until it takes over. After a few hundred years it becomes huge, and home to insects, small animals and bats. The Cathedral Tropical Giant Fig Tree pack documents one of these in 386 photos. It is the kind of real structure that makes a fantasy jungle believable. For more giant trees, see tree reference photos. For temples taken over by fig roots, see jungle temple ruins.

Where jungle meets water

  • Mangrove Swamps: 676 photos of a mangrove swamp in Singapore at 6000 × 4000.
  • Flooded Mangrove Forest: 131 photos in Cambodia, shot at sunset from a small boat moving under the canopy.
  • Spiky Mangrove Forest Creek: 134 photos of a muddy creek in Queensland, lined with spiky mangrove roots. The photographer notes that it is crocodile country.

Asian and island jungles

Rainforest looks different from region to region. The Southeast Asia Forest pack (219 photos) was shot in Thailand. The Coral Island Tropical Forest (128 photos, $4.99) shows aerial roots, vines, ferns, coconut palms and noni trees growing on fossilised coral on Niue. The Himalayan Jungle Lake (218 photos at 7952 × 5304) was shot from a rowing boat on Pokhara lake in Nepal.

Frequently asked questions

Do you have jungle animals as well?

Yes. The Macaque Monkeys pack has 424 photos taken at the Ubud Monkey Forest in Bali, with sequences of monkeys running, climbing, eating and fighting. For more wildlife, see animal reference photos.

Which packs suit close-up plant studies?

The ground-level rainforest packs show leaves, roots and bark in detail. The Tropical Flowers pack (121 photos, Singapore) is made for drawing and painting studies. Its photographer notes that the shallow depth of field makes it less suited to photobashing.

How do I keep a jungle painting from becoming a flat green mass?

Use the reference to plan value and color, not only shapes. In real forest photos you will usually see strong dark areas, pale trunks, yellow and brown dead leaves on the floor and bright light where gaps open in the canopy. Paint those differences first, and add leaf detail last.