The Humanities Review

Issue date: 6/1/08 Section: Spring 2008

You've made a career out of photographing animals in East Africa. How did you start working there? What made you continue to go back?

I was directing a music video in 1995 for Michael Jackson called "Earth Song," which I had scripted to deal with the various ways in which man was destroying the planet. The destruction of Africa's wildlife was a natural part of that, and I chose Tanzania to film the African section. In the midst of the chaotic life that is filmmaking, I found myself entranced by the animals and the landscape, in all the clichéd ways that everyone generally does. I knew I had to come back properly and get to experience the place in a more conventional, less hectic way. One holiday led to another, which led me to realize that there was a way to photograph these animals in a way that expressed my feelings about them and the places in which they lived, and, I believed, in a way that had not been done before.


How did you get started in photo-graphy? Were wild animals your first subjects?

I only came to photography seven years ago. The reason was that I was more and more desperate to combine my passionate love of animals, and what they mean to me, with my need to create visually. My love of animals came first, photography merely the chosen method to capture that. At the moment, it's all I want to photograph for the rest of my life.


What kind of equipment do you use?

Medium format Pentax 67 and standard and x2 lens.


Why do you prefer film?

I use medium format film (6x7cm), and at this stage, this is still superior to digital for capturing the range of tones from highlights to shadows, and for detail. I'm sure that within a couple of years, that will have changed. But I also like the unexpected surprises that sometimes happen with film, things that you never expected. And there are certain things that I can do with a film camera that I could never do with a digital camera. For example, the particular localized de-focus of some of the images is done in camera at the time of shooting, and could never be achieved with a digital camera, or afterwards in Photoshop.

Continued...

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