The Last Place on Earth
Sunday, September 24, 2006
You know when you see someone who does something that transcends all humanity? I don’t know what I’m talking about, but last night I attended a slide show presentation called, “The Last Place on Earth”. I had heard it was just about some random National Geographic Guys walking across Africa or something. But I arrived at VanDuzer Theater and there was a line, a crap load of people pushing to get in. I luckily found a seat that seemed undesirable but I actually could see mighty well. This guy from the Journalism department gave the introduction; he said they rented a special LCD projector for $1500 and that literally was the expense for the whole thing. I thought to myself, well this must be something important I guess, but no ones getting paid?
Then they both came out and the stage was literally dark, you couldn’t really make them out. It seemed they both preferred hanging out in the shadows anyways. The first guy said “my names Nick Nichols, and I’m just going to show a few of my photographs from the Grand Canyon.” He clicked the remote and suddenly the screen lit up with a brilliant Grand Canyon picture. I realized this was no ordinary photographer. He kept flipping through; each photo was National Geographic Magazine quality. He stopped at one and said, “I hate it when I am in my own photographs, but hey wanted this one for the cover, so I didn’t complain much”. I suddenly realized this guy was of tremendous importance; I realized his photos continuously grace the front of the magazine. No wonder the place was packed I thought, many people probably know his photographs but no one really knows the names. Obviously some people did because of the crowd.
Either way the two guys are photographer Michael “Nick” Nichols and ecologist J. Michael Fay. After traveling to and from Africa since 1991, Michael Fay decided to do a walk. “On September 20, 1999, Mike Fay started the ultimate walk in the woods. His “Mega transect” would reach the coast of Gabon 15 months later, on December 18, 2000. David Quammen’s three brilliant articles in National Geographic Magazine documented the journey.” And Nick Nichols flew in and out for weeks at a time taking photos of everything that Mike Fay documented. They eventually published the book “The Last Place On Earth”. They called it so because literally its one of the last places where animals have never seen humans, no logging roads have yet been cut. Eventually their work amounted to 13 national parks in the most remote places of these African countries. 13! Over 11,000 square miles.
The second part of the slide show consisted of more Nick Nichols photographs. But this time they were ones that the public has not even seen yet! We were the first ones. Nick said that the photos wouldn’t even be released until the March 2007 issue. They were of a small national Park in Chad, only 150 miles away from the chaos of Darfur. The two men spoke of how this park is the last safe place for the elephants of the region. There used to be herds of up to 300,000 roaming in and out of the park, but now there are only about 3000 due to poaching. Mike Fay and Nick Nichols have made it their new mission to set up more national parks and try to stop poaching in the area.
Either way I left in complete aw. These two guys were the people you look at in the NGM and say “wow I really wish I could do that, take all those photos, go all those places”. I was so happy I found a seat and that I got to see real Nick Nichols photos using a beautiful $1500 projector. I came home and looked at all of my desktop photos that are on a continuous rotation. All of them I take from the “picture of the day” on NG’s website. Well I have over 100 pictures on there and a huge amount of those are nick Nichols, some of which he showed at the slide show. I already knew the pictures, seen them over and over rotating on my desktop. Cool!
http://michaelnicknichols.com/
(this is nick's website, check out the photos!)
http://www.nationalgeographic.com/ngm/0010/feature1/
(this is a link to a little bit of the story, theres a cool map link)
Then they both came out and the stage was literally dark, you couldn’t really make them out. It seemed they both preferred hanging out in the shadows anyways. The first guy said “my names Nick Nichols, and I’m just going to show a few of my photographs from the Grand Canyon.” He clicked the remote and suddenly the screen lit up with a brilliant Grand Canyon picture. I realized this was no ordinary photographer. He kept flipping through; each photo was National Geographic Magazine quality. He stopped at one and said, “I hate it when I am in my own photographs, but hey wanted this one for the cover, so I didn’t complain much”. I suddenly realized this guy was of tremendous importance; I realized his photos continuously grace the front of the magazine. No wonder the place was packed I thought, many people probably know his photographs but no one really knows the names. Obviously some people did because of the crowd.
Either way the two guys are photographer Michael “Nick” Nichols and ecologist J. Michael Fay. After traveling to and from Africa since 1991, Michael Fay decided to do a walk. “On September 20, 1999, Mike Fay started the ultimate walk in the woods. His “Mega transect” would reach the coast of Gabon 15 months later, on December 18, 2000. David Quammen’s three brilliant articles in National Geographic Magazine documented the journey.” And Nick Nichols flew in and out for weeks at a time taking photos of everything that Mike Fay documented. They eventually published the book “The Last Place On Earth”. They called it so because literally its one of the last places where animals have never seen humans, no logging roads have yet been cut. Eventually their work amounted to 13 national parks in the most remote places of these African countries. 13! Over 11,000 square miles.
The second part of the slide show consisted of more Nick Nichols photographs. But this time they were ones that the public has not even seen yet! We were the first ones. Nick said that the photos wouldn’t even be released until the March 2007 issue. They were of a small national Park in Chad, only 150 miles away from the chaos of Darfur. The two men spoke of how this park is the last safe place for the elephants of the region. There used to be herds of up to 300,000 roaming in and out of the park, but now there are only about 3000 due to poaching. Mike Fay and Nick Nichols have made it their new mission to set up more national parks and try to stop poaching in the area.
Either way I left in complete aw. These two guys were the people you look at in the NGM and say “wow I really wish I could do that, take all those photos, go all those places”. I was so happy I found a seat and that I got to see real Nick Nichols photos using a beautiful $1500 projector. I came home and looked at all of my desktop photos that are on a continuous rotation. All of them I take from the “picture of the day” on NG’s website. Well I have over 100 pictures on there and a huge amount of those are nick Nichols, some of which he showed at the slide show. I already knew the pictures, seen them over and over rotating on my desktop. Cool!
http://michaelnicknichols.com/
(this is nick's website, check out the photos!)
http://www.nationalgeographic.com/ngm/0010/feature1/
(this is a link to a little bit of the story, theres a cool map link)
1 comments:
thats so cool.
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