"Footprints suggest
memory. Footprints suggest motion, history,
and travel. Footprints are documents you leave
behind you, documents that link together places.
A footprint, unlike a map, places a man or woman
in perspective to their world. A footprint is
an impression left in passing, or a foundation
within which to stand."
The Formation of Footprints
began in late January 2002, when I was first
afforded the opportunity to act as Creative
Director for the Jane Goodall Institute. That
spring I began to prepare for a production in
Gombe, Tanzania by hiking on the weekends in
local state and national parks, practising both
my back and my camera on the hikes that were
to shape out the idea of Footprints in my mind.
The trip to Gombe, Tanzania
was never to happen; cancelled when the group
we were working with lost funding. But Footprints,
funded by my spare time, could afford to go
on.
Footprints has become a lot
more since I started it as a record of "a
year spent imagining a green planet." Footprints,
and the things that I wanted to do with it,
grew and changed as my life changed. This new
rendition is my attempt to reflect some of those
changes.
Last spring I met Naomi Ward,
who has joined me on my Journey. Her presence
in my life has perhaps been the greatest and
most welcome change that has visited me in many
years. Naomi is a scientist at The Institute
for Genomic Research in Maryland and brings
a fresh and truly interesting perspective to
Footprints, as she has to my life. Naomi and
I hope to make this site something unique together.
Footprints is a scrapbook,
our corner for photography, adventure, activism,
and environmental conservation, and has a set
of new tools that I hope will be interesting
to those on adventures of their own; including
online travel journals (blogs), inclusive links
to an assortment of environmental and adventure
sites, a calendar and hike planner for our hiking
and backpacking group as well as a news system,
and an online cookbook.
