Artists have a tendency to see the world as, well, art. Step inside some of North Tahoe's artists' minds before you step into their studios open to the public July 18 & 19. Here we'll talk with a hat maker, potter and photographer who's walked with cannibals and more...


Bill Cooper & JoAnn Lippert – Wild Encounters Photography

Q – How long have you been practicing cultural photography?
I’ve always been interested in photography, ever since I was a kid. In the late 80s I started traveling to South America and doing a lot of adventure traveling – whitewater rafting, mountain climbing – and that just brought me into contact with people and I just became really fascinated by the people I’d meet. JoAnn and I started seriously getting into cultural photography about 1994 and between then and now we’ll take 2-3 trips a year, as long as a month, we always try to live with the people and photograph the cultural aspects of their lives – the clothes, architecture, religion, lifestyle – and we just try to preserve through photographs cultures that most people never get to see.

Q – So, I take it you’ve been to some pretty interesting places?
Yes. That’s why some of our photographs are unusual, like the ones of the cannibals we lived with in Irian Jaya Indonesia. We flew into an abandoned missionary airfield in the rainforest with a group of about eight people and lived with a clan of the Korowai people. They’re actually stone age people, they still have stone axes and they do everything as man did a thousand years ago. Some of them live in tree houses hundreds of feet off the ground. They’re extremely warlike people; they fight one another to the death on a constant basis defending their territory, wives and food source – the sago palm. They kill their enemies and they will consume a little bit of the flesh of the dead person to consume the spirit so the spirit cannot harm them.

Q – Knowing this, were you nervous to go in there?
No. We do a lot of stuff like this. I’m more interested than nervous. I want to go in there and photograph. We learned that a group from National Geographic, that had been going in to try to make first contact with these people, had been chased out three weeks before we got there. And then a French film crew, who were going to follow National Geographic, had also been chased out and one of the cameramen had been shot with an arrow. But we were there on invitation. The Swede who set up the trip had lived in the Irianjaya for 25 years and had befriended many of the native people and asked for an invitation for a group of people to come in and live with their clan.

Q – So, was this the most frightening place you’ve ever been?
I can’t answer that. We’ve been through many near-death experiences – that just happens when you’re out there – but I can’t say when I’ve ever been frightened. I was put under arrest in Nepal and they were going to put me in jail until I paid a bribe – the corruption was so bad. But in the Irian Jaya, the environment was so inhospitable, we were very cautious of what we ate, drank and the clothes we wore.

Q – Cultural photography seems like it has the potential to be invasive, how, as a photographer, do you get people to open up and be themselves?
We interact with them. When JoAnn and I travel – and oftentimes we just travel alone – we’ll get up in the morning and start walking around. We go up to the homes and say, “Hello” to people and introduce ourselves and show respect to them. And only when they’re warming up to us we say, “Do you mind, can we take a picture of you?” A lot of people get really excited. They’ll run inside and change clothes. We always try to get them to put addresses down so we can send them the pictures. We never walk up and just stick a camera in someone’s face. There’s an approach to photography that enables you to interact with people and when you’re interacting they’ve got a twinkle in their eye and they want to be there, they want their picture to be taken.

Q – What has been the most enlightening thing you’ve seen photographing?
The knowledge we’ve acquired in the comparative analysis of the world’s religions. The enlightening part is seeing how profoundly religion impacts people’s lives around the world – sometimes good and sometimes bad. The complexity blows me away.

Q – Do you have a favorite travel destination?
Machu Pichu, Peru. It is the most beautiful place in the world. My favorite country is India, it’s such a big and diverse country. The colors in India and the smells – it just overwhelms your senses.

Q – And, for all our photographers out there, what do you shoot with?
We shoot both film and digital. I prefer digital. I still have my old Nikon FF5 film camera because there are some places we go into that are so remote there’s no way to keep your digital equipment charged. I use the Nikon D3 for digital photography. We always pack a variety of lenses. Generally our packs will weigh between 30 and 40 pounds. JoAnn wears a backpack and I just sling mine over my shoulder.

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