What sparked your interest in
photography?
My father, who worked in the radio
and television field, was always
documenting our family road trips
around the United States with a 35mm
film still camera and an 8mm movie
camera. I was his unofficial assistant.
I would keep a written diary of our
trips as well. So even back then I was
unknowingly doing documentary work
and was fascinated with the concept
of freezing moments in time. But it
was a darkroom class at California
State University, Northridge where
I was a History major that put me
on the road to being a professional
photographer. The minute I saw an
image start to appear on a piece
of sensitized paper in a tray full of
developer, I was hooked by the magic
of the photographic medium. That
feeling has never left me.
You are essentially a travel and
documentary photographer. What
made you explore the genre of
wildlife, especially with your series
“Eyes Are The Window To The
Soul”?
In my latest book “The Travel
Photo Essay: Describing a Journey
Through Images” I explain that
photographers working in the
travel field have to wear many
“hats” – we just can’t be food
photographers, music photographers,
portrait photographers, wildlife
photographers and all the other
genres of photography. Travel
encompasses all types of experiences.
In any given story, let’s say a bicycle
trip around the Noto Peninsula I just
did in Japan for the tour operator
Backroads, I had to shoot dramatic
landscape shots with bikes in the
scene, architectural shots of some of
the locations visited, food shots to
show off the local cuisine and so on
to tell the whole story. On my recent
trip to Bhopal to do a presentation on
travel photography for the Adventure
Travel Trade Association (ATTA), I
first did an amazing excursion across
Madhya Pradesh with Purequest
Adventures to visit the Kanha,
Bandhavgarh and Satpura tiger
reserves, so I had to put my wildlife
photographer “hat” on. I brought
my new Nikon 500mm f/5.6 lens
with me specifically for the incredible
photo ops I hoped to encounter.
The trip ended up far exceeding
my expectations. It’s hard to beat
the experience
of looking into
the eyes of a
magnificent Bengal
tiger in the jungle
from the relative
safety of an open-air
jeep.
Swamp Deer, Kanha National Park
Nikon D850 F/5.6 1/1000 ISO200
The orangutan
series which I’ve
named “Eyes Are
The Window To
The Soul” started
with a visit to
Indianapolis, timed
to the opening of
The International
Orangutan Center
there at the
Indianapolis Zoo.
I was in the city to
do a more general
travel story but
became fascinated
by the orangutans
and the cognitive
research studies
being conducted there by Dr. Rob
Shumaker and his colleagues. I
became fascinated by the awareness
and intelligence of the orangutans
and that fact that we share 96.4
percent of the same DNA. I also
became concerned that because of
habitat loss in their native Borneo and
Sumatra, they could soon become
extinct in the wild. This has led me
to photograph the orangutans in
other controlled environments where
I could do portraits. I will be traveling
to Borneo this year for the Borneo
Orangutan Survival Foundation
(BOSF) to photograph orangutans in
rehabilitation centers there as well
as in the wild. Hopefully my images
can help bring attention to the very
serious issues the orangutans face
as well as the solutions that are
possible to protect their habitats while
offering their human neighbors viable
alternatives to deforestation in order
to also survive and prosper. A holistic
approach is needed.
What is your approach regarding
visual communication and how
do you inculcate that in your
photography?
It’s only in the last two centuries
that through the camera, we have
the ability to freeze a moment in
time. Before then, we had to rely on
other art forms – painting, drawing,
sculpting, writing in a more abstract
sense – to see human history before
then. We can of course use the
camera for fine art pursuits and
change reality but for me I prefer to
document the world around me. I
have many photographic heroes but
if I had to pick one, it would be W.
Gene Smith. He
was truly the master of the photo
essay.
How much of an impact did
your Master of Arts in Pictorial/
Documentary History have on your
photography and how you shoot
pictures?
I think the research techniques I
learned and put into practice for
that major which I created from
several disciplines at California, State
University, Los Angeles gave me
the tools to find and then develop
photo essays with a certain amount