National Geographic filmmakers and explorers at large Beverly and Dereck Joubert showcase 40 years of incredible wildlife photography and storytelling in their book Wild Eye
You’ve spent the past four decades documenting and photographing wildlife all over Africa. As you have gained experience creating books, how has your writing process changed?
Dereck Joubert For me, I find I have to edit my writing less and am more precise with my words and intention each time. More and more, I want to write about the essence of life without rambling, so I get right to it.
You must have thousands of photographs, if not tens of thousands. How do you decide which of them are book-worthy?
Dereck Joubert Similarly, it’s now a process of finding the essence in the selection, each one telling a story of the era it represents and then leaving it at that. Our first selection is now not very long, but we trust those instincts much more now.
Does collaborating on a book as a couple make it easier and why?
Dereck Joubert Much easier, but only if you trust the judgement of your collaborator and that the opinions come honestly without an agenda. To clear that out of the way, Beverly takes all the photographs, and I do all the cinematography and writing. That way, it’s not about who made or took a certain image, but what the best image is. No agenda. No ego.
Early on in our careers, we were strategic about this and kept to our roles. That said, sometimes the direction, not the selection, can be driven by a narrative – as in this book – and that takes some writing as an early but interlaced step in the process.
What was the experience like reliving memories through these photos?
Dereck Joubert It’s like walking through an old house full of ghosts in some cases or going to a reunion with old friends in others. We’d say, “This is the only image we got of this great scene,” and recall the agony of missing the moment, and at other times linger on one much longer than it deserved just because it was one of the happiest times of our lives. Ultimately, we were clinical about the process, selecting great images no matter what the heartache or backstory because each image needed to stand on its own in the spotlight of time.
Beverly, is that Legadema on the cover of the book? Please share the special bond you had with this extraordinary leopard cub.
Beverly Joubert It is Legadema, and she was probably mid-teenager equivalent when I took this cover image.
We found her in the wild when she was eight days old and followed her for the next four years, getting to know her intimately – as intimately as you can get to know a wild predator without touching it or altering its life. That is a rule of ours: non-interference or intervention.
She, however, adopted us in one of the most unique wild animal/human ways we’ve ever heard of, where she’d wait for us and greet us each morning, and then we’d go out hunting together. She changed our lives in another way when we looked at leopard numbers remaining in the world and saw the declines, from over 700,000 to about 50,000 in 50 years. That is why we started the Big Cats Initiative and our own Great Plains Foundation – to save as many as we can.
While out in the field, have there been any harrowing tales you’d like to share?
Dereck Joubert A good number of snake bites and large wildlife run-ins. We were once settling in to sleep past midnight in the back of our truck, and we got smacked by a large female elephant who tipped the vehicle up and nearly over half a dozen times, smashing the windscreen and denting the front end. I was able to turn her away peacefully by using a spotlight, while Beverly basically had to ride out the attacks inside, but then we found out why she was so aggressive.
She’d only just given birth to a baby next to us in the dark, and when he stood and took his first steps, he imprinted on us instead of his mother and came to us. I wish he hadn’t. After some careful but quick thinking, we managed to drive away from him – although he followed us, not his mom – and then, when I saw her, I turned immediately, sped off and stopped. She finally came out of the dark and dust and collected her baby. We were a little shaken, and when we sorted ourselves out, we found shards of her ivory snapped off and in the back of our vehicle, as she’d hit us so hard.
What is the most important takeaway you are hoping to bring across in the book?
Dereck Joubert Maybe that time changes everything, so we must soak up every minute, either behind the cameras or just being focused and present – with each other, with time and space. The moment is already gone. This book captures those moments, but also that time for us.
Text | Heléne Ramackers
Photography | Rebecca Hale
Wild Eye by Beverly and Dereck Joubert is available now through beverlyjoubert.com/wild-eye-a-life-in-photographs/.
