Recent photo of Amos Naachum. The images in this article are provided by the interviewee.
The 67-year-old Armos has nearly four decades of photographic experience and has twice won the BBC Wildlife Photographer of the Year Award in the Animal Behaviour category and the Nikon Award for Best Photographer of the Year in the UNITED States. In the field of wildlife, especially the large endangered animal photography, his experience and professionalism can be said to have reached the peak of the pyramid. Underwater, in the air, on land, no matter how remote and desolate the terrain he went, was not difficult for him.
One of The words That Amos often hangs on his lips is, "Most people think wild animals are dangerous and scary, but this is not the case." Fearlessly, he chose to present the subject in a close-range tracking manner, just to prove it. How close is it? So close to swimming with a polar bear almost face to face in the water, so close that the leopard seal can see itself through the reflection of the lens in his hand.
On November 17, Amos came to Shanghai as a judge and guest speaker on the "Wild Travel Endless" 2017 Nature Travel List, and this time, the theme of his speech is still around how to dispel the myth of "dangerous wild animals". "I have a responsibility to use it
Images and personal experiences tell us that wildlife is beautiful, peaceful, and even close to ordinary people, and they play a very important role in the culture of our planet. He explained.
Smiling great white sharks
The Paper: You started out in fashion photography and later worked as a war photographer for a while, so why did you think of changing your career trajectory?
Amos: For me, photography is the medium of conveying ideas, and the photographer's duty is not only to present the picture, but also to convey the story and information through the picture. Most of the jobs I took when I first started were fashion photography, and at the time, making money was what drove me to keep trying, but over time I grew tired of beauty, parties, alcohol, and the materialistic lifestyle. In the fashion world, parties are held every day, and the job quickly becomes a monotonous, unattrieving repetitive work.
The intensity and difficulty of the war correspondent's work required unimaginable stress every day, but the main reason I left the profession was to temporarily stay away from the brutal fighting, and I chose to travel the world for three years with two other photographers and a social worker, a trip that eventually took me to New York, to be exact, the NYU Film School, where I worked as a taxi driver's night job as an assistant instructor at a dive center to earn credits.
Forgot to say that I spent my entire childhood and adolescence on the eastern shores of the Mediterranean, and scuba diving and freediving were my biggest hobbies besides photography. After returning to the water, I witnessed the impact of marine pollution on the ecosystems of different marine areas, which prompted me to choose my current direction. I hope that through my works, I can remind people of the fragility and preciousness of nature.
Filmed off the coast of Norway, adult female killer whales dragging the bodies of their young through the water. According to Amos, seawater pollution caused killer whales to secrete toxic milk after preying on krill, resulting in the death of killer whale pups.
The Paper: How do you work? Can you tell one or two stories about tracking endangered animals?
Amos: This job requires us to keep a close distance from the target object, but what kind of distance is perfect is based on the environment on the site, the habits of different animals, the state of eating and the mood. In the wild, I am extremely rational and rigorous. I never set how close I could be to the animal, but by constantly observing, I adjusted my position many times until I felt that I could get closer and the people around me did not drag their feet.
I say this because I remember when I first tried to shoot polar bear diving underwater more than a decade ago, because of the inadvertent actions of my teammates, a polar bear had a sudden change of mood, chased me underwater, and finally rushed straight to 24 meters underwater. When it didn't breathe enough to stop, it was only a few feet away from where I was. This is probably the closest I've ever been to death on any of my travels.
Dive with polar bears in northern Canada. The experience was also documented in the 2016 Emmy Award for Best Cinematographer Adam Ravetch's documentary Amos.
The Paper: Can you talk about the lessons you learned from this job?
AMOS: A lot of people mistake "tracking" for "chasing," but wildlife photographers never chase wild animals. For me, "tracking" means being a shadow of the animals, observing them while also respecting and appreciating them, and telling the whole story with such an attitude.
If the photographer himself is too targeted and too radical, it is inevitable that it will not be successful. To be honest, whether a film can be produced or not depends a lot of times on the arrangement of nature. I've had Waterloo myself, and the worst part was to spend 4 weeks tracking down a goal, but the goal never came up, and when I postponed the trip again and again until I couldn't stay at the destination anymore, I had to admit defeat. It was a great lesson, and it taught me to spend more time before each trip understanding the habits of animals and the characteristics of their destinations, and to be more careful about preparation. Nature is not always willing to open the door of opportunity for you, and if you touch a nose of ash, you can only choose to find another time and environment to start again.
A squad tracking snow leopards in Ladakh
The Paper: The Snow Leopard you took in Ladakh, India, in 2014 is impressive, can you talk about the shooting process at that time?
AMOS: The whole process was dramatic. On that day, I walked up the Himalayas with some well-known photographers in the industry, accompanied by Sherpa guides and Indian guides, and we camped at an altitude of 4500 meters, hiking 20 kilometers every day to find snow leopards. One night it was unusually cold and snowy, and I got up at 4 a.m. and heard the courtship of a female snow leopard in the distance. After sunrise, we followed the direction of the sound and found a snow leopard across the hillside, we stared at it, it also noticed our presence, from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m., we were separated by a distance of about 300 meters. Eventually tiredness and cold made my teammates retreat, and even the guide returned to camp, leaving me alone to wait in place, just at this time the same sound of the female snow leopard as last night appeared in the valley, and the two leopards converged and made an intimate gesture between the husband and wife. I remember when I packed myself up and retreated, two snow leopards stared at me with a strange look, like a perverted voyeur.
The Paper: Tell us about your next trip?
Amos: In addition to being a photographer and diver, my other identity is that of the founder of Big Animal Wilderness Adventure, which plans and leads twelve different trips every year. A project called "Destination Encryption" will be launched recently, and the names and specific locations of destinations will be kept strictly confidential during the trip, so that participants can focus on the animals, so as to maximize the protection of the scarce resources of animal observation from being destroyed. In my opinion, this is also a good way to promote eco-tourism, to avoid the increase in the popularity of destinations, tourists stepping through the threshold - I was one of the first people to enter the Red Sea, galapagos islands, Cocos Islands to photograph wildlife, so I know the negative impact of high popularity on tourist attractions. This plan also needs to be recognized and cooperated by the local community, and the most difficult point to achieve may be to persuade the other party not to blindly introduce too many travel development agencies because of short-term interests or internal conflicts.
The process of leopard seals hunting penguins
The Paper: Where is one of your favorite destinations?
AMOS: Earth is my favorite destination. I don't believe in religion, boundaries, gender and ethnic differences, but I believe that every living being on Earth is equal, that every living being lives in a similar way, and that the essence is so similar.
The Paper: What is the message you most want to convey to your readers?
AMOS: Valuing every "now." How do we treat others and the environment right now? Can we do the right thing within our control? Because the decision at this moment will define what the future will look like. I want to leave a gift for the future.
Personal Website:
www.amosphotography.com
biganimals.com
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