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Morning News

Nature Photographer Lanting Discusses 'Jungles'

Aired November 2, 2000 - 9:49 a.m. ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

DARYN KAGAN, CNN ANCHOR: Some great pictures now. A visit with a man considered to be one of the world's greatest nature photographers. He has just published a new book; it's his 15th. It's called simply "Jungles."

Frans Lanting joining us from New York this morning.

Mr. Lanting, good to see you.

FRANS LANTING, NATURE PHOTOGRAPHER: Nice to be with you.

KAGAN: Some beautiful pictures you have to share with us today, and the simple word "jungles" can take you all across the world, can't it?

LANTING: I have a hard time hearing you, ma'am.

KAGAN: Can you hear me now?

LANTING: Yes.

KAGAN: OK, I'll just speak up.

The word "jungles," that has taken you all across the world to take incredible pictures.

LANTING: Yes, I've been traveling in and out of jungles for the last 20 years, usually for magazine assignments. And the book is an artistic statement that wraps up many different journeys in many different places, and I try to give a generic look at these places in the tropics.

KAGAN: Well, hopefully our folks in the control room can go ahead and show us some of the pictures that you've taken that we have ready to show our viewers.

There we go. Beautiful pictures, from small creatures, like this frog, to even smaller pictures, even smaller creatures.

You break this up into themes: water and light, color and camouflage, anarchy and order, and form and evolution.

Maybe you can talk about some of these pictures as we're seeing them. LANTING: We're looking at water in Brazil, and the images are taken from a video that supports the book, that is also used for an exhibit that was launched in the Netherlands two weeks ago. And it's yet another way to look at jungles in a very sensual, luscious manner.

I know there are a lot of issues at stake, which I do cover in magazine assignments and in work for the World Wildlife Fund, but this book is really meant to give people an idea of the kaleidoscopic nature of life in the tropics.

KAGAN: What have you learned in your more than two decades out there taking these incredible photos?

LANTING: What I have learned is that we're still at the starting point of recognizing how essential these ecosystems in the tropics are. When I started to work, very little was known. I have gone out with scientists time and again, I'm often out with the conservationists as well.

And I believe that in the next 10, 15 years, we really face some fundamental choices about whether we can preserve the large, intact ecosystems that still exist, Daryn, or whether they're going to get chopped up.

KAGAN: Do you have faith that we will? Do you think people get it? Or do you fear that people don't realize how fragile these systems are?

LANTING: Well, I think it's an ongoing process, and I like to play a role in that. Photography still has a very powerful role to play in that, even in the age of video and Internet. A single image, if it's appropriately captured, has a way to get straight to people's heart.

And that's what I look for in those difficult circumstances in these tropical forests because the work is not easy at all. It looks all very aesthetic, but it's nothing but blood, sweat and leeches when you're there.

KAGAN: And I read you went to school to be an economist.

LANTING: Yes, I started out as an economist and an environmental planner. And I realized that I would be much happier if I could interact with the natural world, and that's what I've been doing for the past two decades.

KAGAN: Well, good for you for following your passions, and thanks for stopping by and sharing your beautiful pictures with us.

LANTING: Well, thanks for having me.

KAGAN: Once again, it's Frans Lanting, and the book simply called "Jungles."

LANTING: Thank you.

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