Nikon, Inc. invited photography pioneer, Michael Minardi, to introduce to the world laser enhanced digital photography with a one-man show in New York at the Nikon House. This new photography technique enabled Minardi to achieve a level of expression similar to that of an artist working with palette and brush. The digital photographs are a new art form. The photographs appear to be electronic serigraphs, some with over 28 distinct colors.

Another uniqueness to this photo process is that images are produced non optically by the computer. The original slide is scanned by a laser and each molecule of the original film is assigned 3 bytes of information. Minardi used this information to achieve the desired colors. Then the computer makes a master 2 1/2 x 3 3/4 inch color negative without the use of light. The art prints are then made on Kodak color paper from these exceptional negatives. The Flamingo was selected from 25,000 entries to win the 1985 coveted Print magazine's regional design annual color award. An international airline company sent Minardi all over South America to produce one laser art photograph for each of their destinations. The assignment took 3 years of photographing Panama, Columbia, Chile, Peru, and Argentina.