Wild Amazon - Nick Gordon
Reading the introduction of yet another wildlife 'coffee table' offering, you could be forgiven cynicism: Gordon claims he was driven by an 'eco-message'. Not only is this phrase piously dated, it is also just the sort of platitude that so many TV mummy's boy presenters would spout. I urge anyone to read on, not just to look at the remarkable pictures. For the best part of ten years this pilgrimage was not only a study in patience and perseverance but also brutally hard, ultimately costing him his life. 'Genuine' photos of jaguars are a rare breed. We are tantalised by occasional glimpses of them but on page 35 the grail is reached ' I have no doubt that the four of us experienced the adrenaline rush at precisely the same moment. I saw the two cubs first'. This sentence alone induces a rush in the reader, so what he must have been feeling is beyond comprehension therefore I am astonished that the photos are sharp. And talking of the photos these particular ones do not stand out at first glance, as we have all seen similar ones before, taken by fraudulent wildlife photographers in captive circumstances, it is only when dwelt upon do they reveal their true currency.
The images throughout the book are good, not award winning, as he concentrated on desperately difficult subjects not quick 'Athena' fixes; the relentless copy adds to this and at some stages the filming commentary's hardships are palpable. Name an illness or ailment and Gordon suffered it for his craft.
One of a kind
This is an important book. One of its kind, and although it is always easy to be pessimistic about this rainforest - his sentence about the Brazilian government's claim about timber production is truly frightening - Gordon eschews this doom mongering and remains upbeat. His 'Behind the scenes' page at the end is revealing for these images were all taken properly, not cheated in Photoshop post production. How refreshing it is to hear of his explanations of which films he used rather than hearing the dubious terms of 'cloning, masking and extra saturation'.
During the Great War another incredible explorer was buried not in his homeland, but in South Georgia. Ernest Shackleton's wife felt he would be appreciated more by the hardy Norwegian whalers than a world myopic to his gifts. I hope there is a shrine to this remarkable individual in Amazonia as he has opened eyes to a world that few will ever encounter.
Wild Amazon is published by Evans Mitchell Books. RRP £25. The publishers will donate money from the sale of each book to Flora and Fauna International to support their work in South America
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