Clouds often sit on the gently rounded mountains of my home district of north Queensland, Australia, bathing the higher peaks and keeping them moist through the long tropical dry season. This is where the upland rainforest, also known as cloud forest, grows. These lush forests are the exclusive home of innumerable plants, the rare Golden Bowerbird, the Fernwren, and a number of other birds and several possums. Watching a brilliant male Golden Bowerbird adding structural sticks and decorations to his bower hidden in the deep forest shade is a special delight – this structure is intended to impress females of his species but humans find this behaviour intriguing as well.

The highest peaks rise just a few hundred metres above the cloud line (to 1300 - 1600 m above sea level) and this rainforest type is of limited extent. As a result and notwithstanding complete protection from logging and land clearing, upland rainforest in this region is particularly vulnerable to the effects of climate change.

The upland rainforest is a challenging environment for the photographer. The confusing tangle of verdant growth often lacks key structural features that facilitate striking compositions. And even on a sunny day – and it often isn’t sunny - the forest interior is impossibly dark, severely constraining shutter speeds and depth of field. Notwithstanding, I’ll do what I can to tell the story of these beautiful forests.