Saturday, March 10, 2007


Around 2000 Time Magazine called noted oceanographer and explorer Wade Edmund Davis, Hero of the Planet. By the next year there were full page photographs of Wade Davis in the National Geographic labeling him just that. In 2001 when Davis was the Explorer-in-Residence at the National Geographic Society I was given the opportunity to take his photograph that September by the Georgia Straight > It was a thrill for me. I was going to meet this Canadian born man who had visited just about every remote spot of our planet. Surely the decision makers at the Straight were going to put him on the cover. They didn't and some unforgettable cartoon on some unforgettable editorial took Wade Davis's place.



The only record of Davis's trip to Vancouver was my little picture (the b+w one) in the Straight and the Vancouver Sun made no mention of the man.

Davis had been very cooperative in posing for me and even went as far of going for my idea for the Greek hero look with ivy around his head. As a Canadian he did suggest to me that nobody was a prophet in his own country. I keep seeing his picture in the National Geographic and as he rockets into further fame I can at least enjoy here the cover that never was. Davis and I had a lot of fun doing the table top of his things on my living room floor. His luggage had been lost so all he could bring was his razor, passport, business card, Swiss Army watch and I used my Nikon F-2 which was exactly like his. I remember that the folks at the Straight had wanted me to photograph Davis as he cleared customs to show the world traveler in action. Even in 2001 it would have taken me weeks to get the necessary permission.



Wade Davis

Wade Davis - Explorer-in-Residence