Award-winning photographer Art Wolfe takes viewers on a stunning visual journey around the globe in Travels to the Edge With Art Wolfe

How would you describe what you do to someone who has never heard of you or seen your work?

Nobody's ever heard of me. I'm basically somebody that travels the world with a camera and I try to capture all of the subjects — whether it's cultural or natural — and reveal it in a slightly different way than they might have ever seen it before. That really is my motivation. I want to try to capture a subject in a way that absolutely marvels people or excites people or entertains.

What a great job to have … to travel the world with a camera and take pictures.

There's actually an ulterior motive to it. I almost want to use my photos as worms on a hook to attach people to the subject, [make them] care about the subject, and ultimately help the subject. Whether it's a vanishing culture or an endangered landscape, I think we ought to care more about these subjects than we currently do.

How many tries do you think it takes to get that award-winning photo?

You know, I never really think about statistics but I can tell you when I started out it took me a lot longer to arrive at a good shot. At this point in my career, I can see the subject and capture it fairly quickly. I've done a lot of wildlife [photography] and you don't have time to wait around — so you make fast decisions. That has served me well with cultures and even the very ephemeral, changing light on landscapes.

What was the most memorable shoot you did that appears in TRAVELS TO THE EDGE WITH ART WOLFE?

Virtually everywhere we went was a dream so they're all great. One that stands out is a trek around these really remote mountains in Patagonia (Southern South America). It's memorable because virtually everything had to be carried on our backs. We were out there in a really exposed environment, and bringing high-definition cameras along is unheard of in those locations. But really, it's a TV series of highlights. We had thousands of places we could have gone and we boiled it down to 13. Each one of them better be a home run and they were all home runs. It's the first in a series of years we're going to do this.

What are some other locations that you want to take the program to?

Well, this year alone we went to Antarctica, the Arctic, the Amazon, and all sorts of great places coming back from India. Some of the places we'll go in the years to come will be Tibet and Mongolia. Many of the places we'll go to have cultures that are intact and haven't changed a whole lot. I want to record it and hopefully make a statement that we should be preserving the languages and the cultures and not allow them to change as dramatically fast as other places like China.

What message do you hope viewers get from TRAVELS TO THE EDGE WITH ART WOLFE?

I want to slow down the change of Westernization and make the respected countries appreciate the culture they've got. We all are diminished when we lose a wildlife species or if we lose a language or a cultural distinction. We don't want to homogenize the world … otherwise it would be a fairly boring place to live.

You've taken more than a million photographs in your lifetime, traveled to almost every continent and published more than 45 books. What is your most vivid experience and why?

One of the clearest memories I've ever had was almost being killed by an attacking rhino - that leaves a pretty clear mark on your brain. I was in Nepal. I was hiking in a forest and the largest species of rhino lives in this forest and it attacked. We were just lucky enough to be able to dive behind a tree that had roots above the ground. Those roots actually served as fences and kept the rhino from reaching us.

So how many life-threatening experiences have you had?

Not a lot. Most of them occurred while flying in very bad weather in remote landscapes and I've had my share of that. I've never had a plane that crashed, but I've had very bad landings. But wildlife species attacks, maybe one or two, and those are really testimonies to my stupidity rather than badges of honor. I've never put myself in a situation like war. I'm not a war correspondent and I'd never choose to be. I've been lucky.

Have you ever thought of writing a book on just your travels?

For the second year, I will have a book out called Travels to the Edge which will be a lot more autobiographical. That will come out next year and will mirror many of the destinations and stories along the way. I have a very clear memory of many of the great trips in my lifetime but I also have a great photo that will further bring it to life. And words on a written page are great but when you have photos they make it more real.