My fascination with apes started as a boy, reading National Geographic Magazine, and later as a college student watching chimps for hours at a small Alabama zoo.

As a young photojournalist on my first assignment in Africa, I flew over the Virunga Volcanoes. The bush pilot said to me, "that’s where the crazy American woman lives alone with gorillas." That was 1979. A year later, I was on the ground trying to photograph my first wild gorilla. I’m still at it.