INTERVIEW
GRAEME GREEN catches up with wildlife photographers HELLE and URI LØVEVILD GOLMAN to discuss their latest project, wildlife conservation, and overcoming a life-changing attack
Wildlife photographers Helle and Uri Løvevild Golman discuss their life-changing experiences
When a tragedy happens, there are two options: to let it destroy you, or to try to find any positives and forge a hopeful way forward. Wildlife photographers Helle and Uri Løvevild Golman have chosen hope.
While working on a documentary about critically endangered lowland gorillas and forest elephants in Gabon in 2017, Uri was attacked at a local market by a suspected poacher from Boko Haram, armed with a knife. In the following fight for their lives, Uri received serious injuries to his heart, liver and a major artery. During heart surgery at a Gabon hospital, he clinically died for two minutes. It took a month before he could even speak.
Left with brain damage, caused by the loss of blood, Uri is now, after years of intense rehabilitation, able to speak, swallow, move his arms, and walk with support. Talking to Helle and Uri via Zoom at their home in Denmark, he even manages a lion’s roar.
Helle is Danish, Uri originally from Israel. Both are National Geographic photographers and explorers, and Canon ambassadors. Gabon was the 25th expedition in their Project WILD: 25 wildlife photography expeditions in five years across seven continents. Photos from their expeditions, from Greenland to Kenya, are brought together in their new book WILD.
Despite the attack and Uri’s debilitating injuries, they’re still working to generate awareness and action to protect the world’s wildlife, not just with their book but also with the creation of Wild Nature Foundation.
WHAT’S IT LIKE TO LOOK BACK ON YOUR 25 EXPEDITIONS FOR THE PROJECT?
URI: We’ve had the greatest wildlife experiences in our life and worked with amazing wildlife conservationists. But
looking back was a very moving experience because of what happened along the way. I feel like Sylvester Stallone in Rocky fighting his way back, training every day. A survivor.
YOUR BOOK WILD CONTAINS PHOTOS FROM AROUND THE WORLD. WHAT IMPACT DO YOU WANT YOUR PHOTOGRAPHY TO HAVE?
HELLE: We want to open people’s eyes to
see the beauty of nature, because we know we can’t live without the wild. We want everyone to reconnect their minds with their hearts. As our mantra goes: “What you love, you will protect.” If we don’t protect nature (mammals, trees, insects, fish…), we ourselves will go extinct.
DO YOU HAVE A FAVOURITE WILDLIFE EXPERIENCE FROM THE 25 EXPEDITIONS?
HELLE: The wolf (see box, p83).
URI: I have another one, when we photographed a big male orangutan walking in torso-high water, in Kalimantan, southern Borneo. We’d been travelling for a month.
I’d had malaria – it was tough. We went up the Buluh River. It was approaching nightfall, and suddenly it was there.
FOLLOWING THE ATTACK IN GABON, HOW ARE YOU NOW?
URI: Mentally, I’m doing great. Physically, not so great. I can walk with support. I will never fully recover, but I can use my mind for new ideas and use my voice to influence.
HELLE: If I had got the 10 knife stabs Uri got, I would never have survived because
I’m physically not big enough. The mentality you need to focus on the beautiful things and the positive things… I’m not sure
I could’ve done that either. My wounds weren’t as severe. Unfortunately, my wounds are in my right hand, where the button on the camera sits, and I have nerve damage. It’s very difficult for me to be quick with my camera.
URI: Helle jumped into the fight, sticking her fingers in the attacker’s eyes. And we saved each other’s lives. I was in the Israeli army. That’s why, even with my injuries, I was able to fight him off.
WHAT GOT YOU THROUGH THE PAIN AND CHALLENGES OF THE LAST FEW YEARS?
URI: Humour, human nature, and love. After having been stabbed, I clinically died for two minutes during heart surgery. I went to the most beautiful place I’ve ever witnessed. It was like looking over the snow-capped mountains in the Italian Alps on a winter’s day. I went up and saw the light. Below, there were clouds. I was filled with love. I felt warm inside. I didn’t want to return, until I felt a sound from my daughters, saying, “We love you. You have to return.” So I found my way back. I reached a dark orange and purple tiled roof, went right through it, and in my heart I decided to live.
HELLE: This is the military hospital in Gabon, which has that tiled roof. I don’t know how you can explain that.
URI: Now I realise that I can prove we have a soul. And it would be extremely selfish of us and stupid to ruin this planet, because there would be nothing to return to as I return to my body again.
HELLE: It’s the love between us that holds us together and makes sure we can actually endure this. And it’s fantastic how people support you when it’s really needed. We still feel people there holding us up every day. That has been the most amazing and positive experience of our lifetime.
URI, YOU’VE COME A LONG WAY ALREADY. WHAT’S YOUR NEXT GOAL?
URI: I aim to get an operation, so that I can walk. My old army officer wrote to me and said, “Get out of that fucking wheelchair. That’s a direct order.” So I can’t give up.
YOUR LIFE AS PHOTOGRAPHERS HAS
EFFECTIVELY BEEN TAKEN FROM YOU, OR MADE EXTREMELY DIFFICULT. HOW ARE YOU COPING WITH THAT?
HELLE: You always have to find a positive angle and go for it. But when I think about it, I can feel that if I was to let go, I would instantly cry because we miss being out there so much. It hurts.
URI: Instead of photographing wildlife, I want to move into filming wildlife, moving away from stills. I can do that with one hand. I want to use image-stabilised cameras and do wildlife films. I can take photos, but I
can only use one hand – the other hand doesn’t work. So I need someone to put up the camera and do all the settings.
One of the things I really want to show people is that even with a handicap, you can still go out on expeditions. My next plan is to sail around the globe in 2024 with a crew and make a film, with the name WILD Love. We need two captains, two sailors and funding, but we’re on it.
I’ve been blessed with a positive mindset, and when I set my mind on something, it usually happens.
WHAT DO YOU HOPE TO ACHIEVE WITH YOUR WILD NATURE FOUNDATION?
HELLE: When we started Project WILD, we knew that one day we would be done with this project, and then what? We said to ourselves, “We shouldn’t let a good thing fade away with a book and an exhibition. We should make something more solid out of it. Why not make a foundation where we can add some money into conservation?”
URI: A foundation gives more impact. The goal of the foundation, among others, is to buy up land, for protection and rewilding.
HELLE: The best way to do nature conservation, beside communicating to people about it, is either to buy land or to turn it into national parks. While doing the 25 expeditions, we wanted to save the idea of a foundation for later. But then this attack happened in Gabon, on the 25th expedition. With an attempted murder, the media light on us was way bigger. We realised we had to use it in a positive way.
URI: That’s why they call it a handicap, because it’s very handy in some situations.
WILD by Helle Løvevild Golman and Uri Løvevild Golman is out now, published by WILD. Find out more at WWW.WEAREPROJECTWILD.COM
Instagram: @WE_ARE_PROJECT_WILD
Facebook: @THEPROJECTWILD
For more on their Wild Nature Foundation, see
WWW.WILDNF.ORG