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For one of
my last exhibits, I published a book of photographs
of the Gay Pride Parades in Paris and London. Since
then I have photographed in two adventurous locations.
In December of 2004, I traveled to Antarctica by cruising
from the southernmost city in the world, Ushuaia, Argentina.
Getting to Antarctica involves traversing the Drake
Passage around Cape Horn,, through some of the roughest
waters in the ocean.. However, once through it you find
a land that few people have visited. Cathedral- sized
icebergs of majestic blue, playful penguins and, in
the sky, huge wandering albatrosses . The penguins carefully
build their nests of rocks to sit and hatch their eggs
on.. They squawk noisily if one comes too close to their
young fluffy babies.
In July of
2005 and 2006, I took more photographs of wildlife in
the game reserves of South Africa and the Deserts of
Namibia. Watching a pride of lions with their cubs drinking
just after feasting on a giraffe kill. is quite a unique
sight. Cruising around in a Land Rover with experienced
guides, I was able to capture intimate images from close
range. Lions, cheetahs, elephants, hippos, rhinos and
giraffes.. But I specialized in members of the cat family.
The most elusive leopards and cheetahs were my favorites
Because of environmental issues, these two worlds of
animals, could become less accessible and perhaps disappear.
In the southwest
corner of Africa, which is so remote that it takes three
plane changes to get to it, the landscape changes dramatically
to a sea of red dunes, and sand in the Namib Desert.
It is the oldest desert on the planet that is ever changing
as it runs along the entire Atlantic coastline. Namibia
is known for its vast open landscapes, endless blue
skies, sunny weather and tranquil starry nights. Namibia
has been called "the land that God made in anger",
and Sossusvlei is one such place where someone may go
search for their soul. My goal is to capture these worlds
in all their splendor before they may vanish.
All of these
disparate images have a cohesive theme for me. The worlds
of Antarctica and Africa are filled with visible reminders
of our contemporary problems; pollutants, poaching,
global warming, to name a few, and some of these photographs
may not be available in the future. Perhaps that is
why the artist Christo always limits his exhibitions
to two weeks. He realizes how ephemeral these worlds
are. If you want to see and record these remote places
one must travel both at a circumscribed time and place,
often with difficulty. But truly with a sense of wonder.
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