On 60 Minutes, Anderson Cooper interviews wildlife photographer Thomas D. Mangelsen. One theme Cooper explores is patience, downtime, waiting. When Cooper tells Mangelsen, “Over the course of your lifetime, and the time you spent waiting, it’s incalculable, I’m sure,” Mangelsen says with a smile, “It’s stupid.” Cooper follows that up with, “Have you learned anything with all that waiting?” Mangelsen says, “You learn enough that the waiting pays off.” At the age of 72, Mangelsen continues to travel to remote and inhospitable places for his work. Many of the images shown during the 60 Minutes episode is included in Mangelsen’s 2019 wall calendar, WILD ($14.99).
Photographer Thomas D. Mangelsen was born and raised in Nebraska, and went to the University of Nebraska where he studied zoology and wildlife biology. He got his big break when National Geographic television wanted to produce a documentary about the endangered whooping crane, which Mangelsen had been photographing for more than ten years. The final product, Flight of the Whooping Crane, was nominated for an Emmy Award in 1984 (famous director John Huston narrated the film). That’s not Mangelsen’s only famous connection: Mangelsen is a colleague of legendary primatologist and anthropologist Jane Goodall. He serves on the advisory council for the Jane Goodall Institute and she is a member of his foundation, The Cougar Fund. 60 Minutes airs Sundays at 7pm on CBS.
MORE BOOKS and PHOTOGRAPHY WORK by Thomas D. Mangelsen (links to Amazon) below:
