Up close and personal: Juan José Arango

by Peter Rockstroh

Sharing the blue, black and yellow color scheme of the larger mountain tanagers, the slightly smaller purplish-mantled tanager, *Iridisornis porphyrocephalus*, frequents the edges and clearings of Andean forests. Image: ©J. J. Arango 2021.

After reading his résumé, I was expecting our first phone call to open with, “My name is Arango.”

“JJ Arango.”

Cardiologist, medical researcher, writer, photographer, airplane pilot and YouTuber, he spent 18 years as director of the cardiovascular unit and medical research institute in Cali, Colombia before he decided to change the course of his life. I am almost tempted to use that often misused phrase, “There is method to his madness”, but there is an underlying discipline and structure to the way he approaches everything he does that leaves no room for madness.

Juan José has a lifelong medical history of a cognitive condition occasionally known as bibliophilia, caused by a chronic, asymptomatic thirst for knowledge. He finally managed to get this quirk under control after decades of constant research, but ultimately had to accept that there really is no cure for curiosity.

I could go through a long list of his incredible achievements, but that would only repeat information that has already been published elsewhere. In some ways this article is not exactly about him. It is more about his personal motivations and something very rare and unique that he discovered fairly recently. Something so rare and so precious that it takes a very healthy dose of self-control to manage it when you believe that you have unlimited access to it: Time.

About a decade ago, Juan José decided that the normal 24/7 week was not rewarding enough to complete everything he wanted to work on, because there was always something getting in the way of what he really wanted to do. He decided to quit his “real” job and start working on everything else that he wanted to excel in. It is a genuinely radical way of dealing with some obstacles in life, but it has worked out well for him. He is that incredibly fortunate individual who has successfully traded his calling for his passion.

Juan José Arango is a man driven by his passions. He accumulates knowledge in order to share the results of his conclusions with anyone interested or that can benefit from it, and he approaches everything he enjoys in life like a seasoned jazz musician. You earn your right to improvise when you have done your homework, learned the craft to perfection, and paid your dues.

So…

…getting back to the original story, his decision a decade ago to help him switch from the intense, hectic life at the hospital to focus on everything else he wanted to do not only implied a change of activities, but also therapeutic change of scenery. He already had a fascination with flight, the quintessential feeling of liberty. He had been a photographer since adolescence and grew up with a darkroom at home.

Photographing birds was not something planned.

It just happened.

Now, after a decade of practicing wild bird photography throughout Colombia, he has probably learned everything there is to know about native birds, cameras, the related gear and photographic gadgets in general. He has tried them all and over the years, discarded everything that weighs him down and doesn’t improve the quality of his images. Today he carries a Nikon 810 and a 500 mm prime lens on a monopod and does most of his photography walking slowly through dense tropical vegetation. His favorite subjects: Small, active upland birds, the kind that most bird photographers always seem to insult under their breath due to their maddeningly will-o’-the-wisp behaviors while traveling briefly though the viewfinder… or is it only me?

With an outsized head and bill giving it the look of a pint-sized answer to Australia’s kookaburra, a white-chested puffbird, *Malacoptila fusca*, surveys its changing world. Widespread in northern South America, they are considered difficult to find and difficult to photograph. Image: ©J. J. Arango 2021.

Thinking about his subject material of choice–jaded and unskilled bird photographers call them “dickie birds”–they seem rather representative of his philosophy overall. Success photographing them well requires having mastered all your skills with a specific camera, patience and perseverance, the ability to react quickly, and do so with precision and an artist’s eye.

And time.

When I asked him to pick a dozen or so images that meant something special to him, I realized that that was probably the least imaginative request I could have come up with. It is the kind of question you ask a visiting rock star about their favorite songs when are pretending to be a cool and seasoned journalist while reporting for your high school newspaper. He offered me a free choice of images for this article from his files. Since I would have probably selected the large and showy native birds I’d like to photograph myself, instead I inquired if he found any families of birds particularly interesting or challenging.

He replied, “Here is a group I really like.”

The golden-fronted redstart, *Myioborus ornatus ornatus*, is a very handsome subspecies that occurs only along the piedmont of the eastern Andes that face the Colombian Llanos. The white patch around the eye makes it not only easy to identify, but also to focus on. ©J. J. Arango 2021.

A minute later I received a file that included many of the images that illustrate this article. Several colorful manakins, a couple hummingbirds, and many more selected tanager trophies from Colombia’s amazing avian diversity (>1,900 species and counting). He seems to have a special knack for getting wonderful images of tiny, unruly and impossible-to-focus-on-with-a-telephoto-lens bird species.

His Flickr page has a few thousand images and several million visits. His YouTube channel contains several hundred clips on subject matters that stretch from the Time-Space continuum to analysis of the COVID crisis, and he has tens of thousands of followers on it. For someone that uploads all this information into the ether without any advertising so that anyone interested can access and benefit from it explains, in large part, his numerous and enthusiastic online following.

I was very grateful for the opportunity to interview him, since he doesn’t much care for attention and usually tries to stay under the radar. He pilots his own plane because he enjoys the sensation of flight. He photographs birds because he enjoys the solitude of a Homo sapiens-free environment (his words, not mine). Although he spends many hours behind his computer in post-production, polishing up the images that are his pride and joy, he recognizes that that is just the means to an end. It is taking the original photo in the field that counts most. I believe he is a hippie at heart.

He just doesn’t know it.

I am always fascinated by the things I learn when I try to find out what motivates someone who has other demonstrable talents to take photos; how and why they select and approach their subject matter, and how they craft the final image. After hearing Juan José Arango speak about his previous responsibilities as a cardiologist and medical researcher, then about his shift to advanced bird photography, it is clear that all he needed to succeed was more time.

Time well spent to do things exactly the right way.

Digital tools and broadband highways have empowered an enormous number of computer users to share their thoughts and images with the wide world. Sadly, only a miniscule number of them produce genuinely interesting material that others can learn from.

This gifted subset of the population generates, again, only a tiny fraction of internet content that–apart from teaching something–also inspires and brings immediate joy to the intended audience.

We are especially happy when we come across these rare Renaissance people whose passions provide new insights and images to our readers. Dr. Juan José Arango’s astonishing bird portraits celebrate color and form in the world’s most diverse avifauna.

Enjoy.

PR