Carrie Vonderhaar
Still Photographer
Additional Camera Operator
Close call
Near the Peruvian border, Matt, Plínio, Blair and I were filming this renegade logger illegally cutting down a massive tree. The tree was supposed to fall completely opposite of us. But as soon as he chainsawed enough of the tree and it started to fall, he started yelling something in Portuguese. Well, none of us speak Portuguese and I don’t know what Plínio was listening to because he didn’t warn us, but the wind caught the top of the tree and pulled it towards us. I had my camera on and taking pictures, when I noticed the tree was getting closer and closer. So I screamed, and we all just ran! The tree fell where we had just been five seconds before.
CARRIE VONDERHAAR, EXPEDITION PHOTOGRAPHER
As staff still photographer for the Ocean Adventure series, Vonderhaar was the first woman to dive Cordell Bank on a closed-circuit rebreather, and the first woman to work with Jean-Michel as both a topside and underwater camera operator. She is also the only expedition team member to travel the entire length of the Amazon from the Andes to the Atlantic.
Her degrees in French, political science and fine arts from Wittenberg University and advanced studies at Université de Rennes 2, France, and Moscow State University, Russia, led to studies at the well-known Brooks Institute of Photography. Vonderhaar was the photographer and photo editor for Jean-Michel Cousteau’s Limited Edition Coffee table book, America’s Underwater Treasures and her images have been published in DIVER, The New Yorker, Vogue, Worth, Sublime, Santa Barbara, Outside, Men’s Journal, Outdoor Enthusiast, Reader’s Digest, Saveur and Discover, as well as various international magazines. She is currently working on Jean-Michel Cousteau’s Return to the Amazon, the companion book to the film.
© Céline Cousteau, Ocean Futures Society
© 2008 Ocean Futures Society and KQED. All rights reserved.