The Daring Dozen – Jane Goodall

In early September of this year, we received a call from Caitlin Peters at AARP Magazine to be part of the 2012 Inspire Awards, a year-end collection of inspiring people who have changed the world. Over the course of six weeks this assignment took us from Texas to Arizona, Washington DC, New York City, Chicago, Wisconsin, Miami, Tennessee, and Vancouver. Aside from making photos of the award winners, we were lucky enough to experience their greatness and learn what they had to share with us. Over the next few weeks on the blog we’ll be sharing photos and stories from this adventure.

Where better to start than with the world famous anthropologist and primatologist Jane Goodall? She became famous for her decades long study of primates in Tanzania. Goodall now devotes her time to traveling the world speaking on behalf of the Jane Goodall Institute, an organization she established to further the cause of primates and their habitats through education and conservation. We were lucky to spend an hour with her and make some great photos. Keep Reading to find out the full story and see behind the scenes shots from our intentional shoot with Dr. Jane Goodall…

Our journey to photograph Dr. Goodall started months before we made our way to Vancouver this fall. As it happens though, she is an extremely busy woman, traveling all over the world speaking to further the interests of the Jane Goodall Institute. Initially trying to schedule the shoot in Virginia, then Los Angeles, we finally caught up to her in Canada where despite her busy schedule, she spared an hour for us to work together.

The morning of the shoot we started early, knowing we had just a few hours to scout Stanley Park before Dr. Goodall arrived. Fortunately for us, Stanley Park had just the right combination of beautiful old growth forests and nestled clearings where we could set up a handful of shots to make the most out of the time.

Also fortunate for me, these locations weren’t too deep in the forest and didn’t require trudging miles into the woods with generators and lights. If you’ve never been to Stanley Park – imagine Central Park in NYC, but filled with ancient redwood trees and wild animals (well, wilder than pigeons).

In the shot above you can actually see Jane Goodall holding “Mr. H” the famous stuffed monkey that’s traveled with the doctor to over fifty countries all over the world. See more of the inspiring story behind Mr. H at The Goodall Institute’s website.

After the shoot itself wrapped, we all took a quick moment to pose with Dr. Goodall. Thanks again to our producer Sarah Tesla, and her team with Make Productions. You guys did an amazing job of making this shoot possible.

And now we finally know why Chris was traveling all over with that Monkey is his bag. Mystery solved.