Endangered Great Apes
by Boyd Norton
Every generation has escapist media. When I was a kid, instead of Indiana
Jones, the Saturday afternoon matinee at the local movie theater was often a Tarzan movie.
To impressionable youngsters like me, these films and movies were an escape from the
boredom of schoolbooks, transporting us to exotic realms and vicarious adventure.
Even at the time, most of us realized that the Tarzan flicks were pure hokum, probably filmed on a Hollywood backlot instead of Africa. But it didn't matter. They fired the imagination and, in my case, sparked enough interest to pursue many books on the subject of exploration and rare and unusual animals. Many a night I lay curled under the bed covers reading by the light of a dimming flashlight long after the turn out that light and go to sleep edict had been issued. Four decades later some of those adventure books had great influence on my own book on mountain gorillas and on my photographic explorations into the realm of orangutans as well.
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About Boyd Norton:
Boyd Norton once blew up a nuclear reactor - deliberately! It happened during the 1960s when he was a nuclear physicist and technical research director studying reactor safety at Idaho’s National Reactor Testing Station. In 1969 he gave up his physics career to devote himself to environmental photography and writing.Nowadays, Norton travels extensively documenting the world’s wild places and environmental issues, a specialty he has pursued for almost thirty years.
His articles and photos have appeared in most major magazines, including Time, National Geographic, Smithsonian, Audubon, Conde Nast’s Traveler, Stern, Vogue, Money, Outdoor Photographer, Popular Photography, Travel-Holiday, Travel & Leisure, Outside, Reader’s Digest, The New York Times, Sierra Club, Playboy, Time-Life Books, and numerous others worldwide.
He is the author/photographer of thirteen critically acclaimed books:
The Art of Outdoor Photography
Baikal: Sacred Sea of Siberia
SafariJournal
The African Elephant: Last Days of Eden
The Mountain Gorilla
Boyd Norton’s PhotoJournal
Divided Twins: Alaska and Siberia
Backroads of Colorado
Alaska: Wilderness Frontier
Wilderness Photography
Rivers of the Rockies
The Grand Tetons
Snake Wilderness
In 1973 Norton pioneered the concept of nature photography workshops, establishing his Wilderness Photography Workshops program.In addition to his photography, writing and workshops, Norton is also a photo software developer. His slide captioning/stock photo management database system, NSCS Pro, is used worldwide by hundreds of photographers.
Norton has been an environmental activist for over 30 years, testifying at numerous Senate and House hearings on wilderness and park preservation. He serves on the Board of Trustees for the Dian Fossey Gorilla Fund, devoted to saving the last mountain gorillas.