Endangered

The whole Endangered project was a remarkable and sometimes shocking journey of discovery around our planet and its threatened animal species. My guide on this voyage of discovery was the IUCN’s Red List, which marks its 50th anniversary last year. What I find downright shocking is the fact that in 2015 there are more than 22,000 species on the list with a status ranging from vulnerable to critically endangered.

In August 2014 I travelled to the hinterlands of Borneo for an interview with Dr Willie Smits. Besides a heart-warming encounter with an inspired man who has dedicated his life to saving the rainforest and more particularly the orangutan, it was harrowing to see up close the devastation being wreaked on the jungle by illegal tree-felling to make way for palm oil plantations.

It’s just over three years ago now that I went back to the roots of photography -- the 19th century wet plate collodion process which involves pouring the emulsion on the glass plate yourself. Fascinated by the beauty of the imperfections inherent in this manual technique, I started on Endangered. The fragility of the glass and the authentic nature of the process seemed to me to fit well with the animals’ vulnerable status.

With Endangered I’ve put a small number of the threatened species on a pedestal. I hope that the photographs, the book and the travelling exhibition will serve as an inspiration to people to take care of our planet.