Mattias Klum: Following Fascination
Exploring the vast darkness of the Borneo rain forest is rough, dirty and dangerous work. Just ask wildlife photographer Mattias Klum. “Most people say that it would be great to be in the rain forest,” he says. “But when you explain what it means to spend 14 months in a tent in a moldy forest full of mosquitoes and leeches and termites, trying not to catch malaria, it’s sometimes easier said than done.
“But I love what I do. My inspiration, my driving force, has been to find extremely interesting stories that need to be told, things that people need to see.”
That driving force has hurled Klum to the remote regions of the globe. He’s tracked King Cobras in the tangled jungles of Southeast Asia, ridden with horsemen on the steppes of Mongolia, dined with monks in the Himalayas and sailed the waters off the Galapagos Islands. His work has been featured in “National Geographic,” “Wildlife Conservation,” “Audubon” and “Geo” magazines. He has also produced his own film with his wife, Monika, has appeared as a guide and host in numerous nature programs and has written eight books.
“I’ve worked professionally as a photographer for 20 years,” he says. “I dive into projects as labors of love, try to tell stories about endangered habitats, animals close to extinction, cultures that are close to peril.” Klum is enthralled by nature, spellbound by the wonders of the world. “It doesn’t have to be something exotic or far-flung,” he says. “It could just be the small things, a flower in the Swedish countryside near my home. The right light, the right situation can be a treasure. I’m a very inquisitive and nosy person. If I can go off the path, I will.”
Whenever Klum wanders off the path, he takes his PowerBook G4.
The laptop is his journal, video editing suite, communication device and mobile image gallery during all his expeditions. It simply has to work, no matter how harsh the conditions may be. “I’m very careful not to mess things up because I don’t want to find myself without it,” he says. “But just bringing it to the rain forest or to the Himalayas or on a boat to the Galapagos is more a field test than most people would dare to do.”
JungleBook
Few have a true understanding of the word “expedition.” For Klum, an expedition means a swath of perilous, often unexplored land, a team of assistants and a thousand pounds of gear. It means being away from the comforts of his studio in Sweden for 10 weeks at a time, being entrenched in strange lands for as long as 14 months. It means packing anti-malaria drugs, first-aid equipment and even snake anti-venom.
It also means that Klum has to be very careful with his computer and photography equipment. When he travels, Klum keeps his PowerBook G4 in a Pelican hard case. “It has lots of foam padding inside and an air pressure release valve so it won’t have any problems during flights,” he says. “It’s waterproof, dustproof. It really works phenomenally well. It’s a good place for the computer to rest when it’s on tour.”
Of course, finding a power outlet for his laptop and its peripherals can be a challenge, so Klum packs extra batteries and plans his routes near towns, villages or scientific outposts. Even so, sometimes it’s impossible to pop into the local hotel or café to charge up.
In 1996, Klum struck into the Borneo rainforest, leagues from any power station, on a 14-month expedition. “We packed in about 1.5 metric tons of gear,” he says. “We were so far out in the forest that we had to bring solar panels and a generator. We climbed to the tops of the trees to set them up. But when it’s monsoon season, you could go weeks without seeing the sun to fire up our generator.
