“I always say, I didn’t choose the cats, big cats chose me,” offered photographer Steve Winter in a recent phone interview with The S.B. Independent. Since he was an eight-year-old boy growing up in Indiana, Winter dreamed of shooting for the iconic magazine National Geographic. His wish came true in 1991, and ever since he has been travelling the globe capturing in photos the lives of some of the world’s most illusive creatures — tigers, lions, leopards, and jaguars. In 2013, Winter and his wife collaborated on their book Tigers Forever: Saving the World’s Most Endangered Big Cat.
When not in the field, Winter traverses the world on speaking engagements to enlighten the public to the plight of the big cats, several of which are on the endangered species list. With his beautiful images in tow, Winter will visit Santa Barbara as part of UCSB’s Arts & Lectures’ Nat Geo series. Below is an abridged version of my recent conversation with the award-winning photographer.
How did you get interested in photographing big cats? I started out as a photojournalist and was at an agency in New York City. And I had been doing some work for National Geographic and got a job for [a] pharmaceuticals [company] that were, they were trying to find new drugs in the rain forest working with the Biodiversity Institute in Costa Rica. They asked me if I wanted to do this PR shoot. And I thought, public relations, I don’t really do that, but it was in Costa Rica, so I brought my family and went down there … That was the first time I was ever in a jungle. And one of the scientists I worked with [there] said, “I have a story for you” and he sent me the information and it was in Guatemala…I was doing my first bird story for National Geographic on a bird, the Quetzal, the sacred bird of the Mayans, and I was on top of a mountain in a cloud forest in Guatemala, and one night I was in my bunk, reading my book like I always do to go to sleep, and I heard the creaking, like somebody walking up the stairs and then it stopped on the porch. Then I heard scratching under the door and then sniffing. Now, that scared me to death…and I called on the walkie-talkie and told Juan Carlos, the guy I was with, what happened and he just started laughing and said not to worry, that it was just a black jaguar. …I knew something was [around] because I’d walk back at the end of the day, and my hair on my arms and the back of my head would stand up — it’s like our brains are hardwired still [with] primordial instincts. That cat was following me…These cats are curious, they wanna know who you are, they don’t attack you, but you’re a guest in their home, which is the forest.