National Geographic Live: I Bought a Rainforest

press release: Discover what it’s like to live in, not just visit, two of the world’s great wildlife parks.

At National Geographic Live’s “I Bought a Rainforest,” Charlie Hamilton James, a National Geographic magazine photographer specializing in issues concerning conservation, natural history, and anthropology, will recount his unlikely journey in the Peruvian rainforest and living in Yellowstone National Park.

Listen and learn from Charlie Hamilton James during “I Bought A Rainforest” at Overture on Tuesday, April 30 at 7:30 p.m. Tickets, $35-$49, are available at the Overture Center Ticket Office (201 State Street), by phone (608.258.4141) or online (overture.org). Groups of 10+ may be eligible for discounted tickets; for information, please call 608.258.4159. This show is appropriate for age 6 and older. The lecture features a post-show Q&A with Hamilton James and is sponsored by Exact Sciences

For 20 years, Charlie Hamilton James worked in the rainforest habitat of Peru’s Manú National Park. He purchased a 100-acre plot of land adjoining the park. Little did James know he acquired an illegal coca plantation through his purchase. His misadventures are featured in both the June 2016 issue of National Geographic and a three-part series by the BBC entitled I Bought a Rainforest. He went on a journey to discover the real Amazon — living with illegal loggers, working in a gold mine, hunting with the Machiguenga Indians, and photographing uncontacted tribes.

Hamilton James shoots natural history films for clients, including the BBC and others, through his production company Halcyon Media LTD, which he runs with his wife Philippa Forrester. He has been nominated for Emmy awards and twice won the Royal Television Society award for photography.

Hamilton James also has lived in Yellowstone, the world’s first national park, founded in 1872. Yellowstone is home to a wide variety of fish, birds, reptiles, amphibians, and 67 species of mammals, including some of our most embattled predators. In the May 2016 National Geographic story celebrating the National Park Service centennial, Hamilton James went beyond the park’s boundaries from Wyoming into Idaho and Montana, to create a portrait of the one of the largest temperate-zone ecosystems on Earth.

Charlie Hamilton James is a photojournalist who specializes in wildlife and conservation. His work requires specialized equipment, much of which he makes. Hamilton James has a particular interest in exposing “the brilliance of nature” in order to better document, understand, and save it. He has been obsessed with kingfishers — brightly plumed ambush hunters — since he was six, and with otters since he was ten. He has since become an authority on both, photographing kingfishers for National Geographic in 2009 and river otters in 2013. He also does on-air work as a TV presenter for various BBC programs, including Halcyon River Diaries, which documented the year he and his family spent living on the river outside their house.

Highlights & Accomplishments:

• Royal Television Society medal winner for cinematography.
• Winner of Wildlife Photographer and Cameraman of the Year
• 5 of his images selected in National Geographic's 52 best photographs of 2016, curated from over 2 million images.

National Geographic Live is the live events division of National Geographic. With a broad roster of talent including renowned photographers, scientists, authors, filmmakers and adventurers, National Geographic Live’s critically-acclaimed programs have connected with audiences worldwide for over a century.

Currently, National Geographic Live events are held in a variety of cities around the world, including, Seattle, Tampa, Los Angeles and Calgary. In each of these cities, speakers share behind-the-scenes stories from the front lines of exploration onstage alongside stunning imagery and gripping footage. For more information, visit natgeolive.com.

Overture Center for the Arts in Madison, Wis., features seven state-of-the-art performance spaces and five galleries where national and international touring artists, ten resident companies and hundreds of local artists engage people in nearly 600,000 educational and artistic experiences each year. With the vision to provide “Extraordinary Experiences for All”, Overture’s mission is to “Support and elevate our community’s creative culture, economy and quality of life through the arts.” Overture.org