/ 2008 / /
Urban Jungle
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Prize
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PhotographerBrent Lewin, Thailand
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Date of Photographonline
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Website
A domesticated elephant scratches its head on a wall at an abandoned housing development in Bang Bua Thong, Thailand. Many of the elephants are covered in white concrete residue from scratching themselves on the walls of the unfinished homes. In the furthest reaches of the complex, unknown even to many of its inhabitants, live five families with their ten pet elephants. As if materializing from a classical tale of days gone by, the elephants live side by side with their handlers, or mahouts. Many of the elephants use the abandoned structures as a jungle gym?they clamber in and out of the many rooms, and some even climb the stairs to the second floor.
