possibly can make people realize we have to protect and preserve the last wide-open and wild places on earth. I use my photographs to try to get across the message that this is worth preserving. People think we can just do whatever we want to this planet, and take things for granted, but if we lose nature, we're going to lose everything."
Daryl's trips - or journeys, as he prefers to call them - have brought him through backcountry Central America, remote reaches of Bolivia and Peru, across Argentina's ruggedly stunning Patagonia. "I'd research as much as I could, then I'd piece together an itinerary. But I never make hotel reservations before I leave; |
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that's the kiss of death. I never have problems getting a room, because the places I'm going to, there's never anyone around anyway. You're lucky if you can find a hotel."
Daryl feels as strongly about what he does as how he does it. "I need to go where I want, stay as long as I want. I can't shoot from a photo list, I can't be checking in with editors on satellite radios. I believe in totally breaking off communication with the outside world when I travel.
"People always want to come with me, carry my bags or my camera equipment, but I politely tell them that I can't do it because I'm shooting from dawn to dusk nonstop and can't have distractions. One |
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of the underlying themes in my work is that I have to be free. I shoot pure and travel free. At heart, I'm really a loner in a lot of ways."
And then he comes home to Wilton and becomes the other Daryl Hawk, the one who can saay without a hint of insincerity, "I've always considered myself a family man first, and the thought of being away more than a month is something I couldn't consider." A month, as it happens, is precisely the time he was away on his most recent journey, to Bhutan last November.
"I had a more intense desire to see Bhutan than any other place in my whole life, "he says, his voice once again rising in pitch. "I spent a year researching it and |
