The second part of this series unveils the carefully constructed illusion we weave around the notion of wilderness. Every photograph contained within was captured in one of two distinctly human-made spaces: the California Academy of Sciences in San Francisco, where meticulously crafted dioramas present nature with such verisimilitude that, when photographed, they create a convincing mirage of the authentic; or Amaru, a wildlife rescue center nestled in Cuenca, Ecuador, where each creature exists separated from its kind and from its world within the confines of cages and fences, their movements circumscribed by human intervention.

For the vast majority of urban dwellers, the prospect of encountering wildlife in its relatively pristine habitat has become increasingly remote—a luxury bordering on impossibility in our contemporary world. Yet photography and wildlife documentaries persist in crafting a seductive illusion, nurturing a collective hope that somewhere, beyond the concrete sprawl of our cities, vast untouched areas on this planet still exist where wildlife flourishes in abundance, where encounters with the wild are not merely possible but effortless.