peteryoung | Lives of Photographs, 42.1

I never thought any of my photos could be used for a project such as illustrating the field notebooks of Charles Darwin, but that's what has happened. Back in April, English Heritage contacted me via Flickr and asked permission to use this 1991 photo of the tree canopy in Tijucar National Park in Rio de Janeiro – that's the forest beneath the famous Corcavado statue of Christ. It's taken since April to build the website and it went live yesterday. You will need to have Microsoft Silverlight installed to view the notebooks as they've done a professional job in bringing them all to life. Go here first then click on 'Explore the Manuscripts', where a free Silverlight install button can be found near the bottom of the page; the notebook pages will then launch automatically and you can scale and turn the pages either by clicking or manually with your cursor. There's plenty to see, and my photo can be found illustrating 'Darwin's field notebook: Cape de Verds Highlights'; go to the 2nd page and click 'Commentary'. Not a money shot, but hey, being connected to Charles Darwin in this very small way feels like payment enough.