Amazon adventure: Stephen and Marlo Kirkpatrick's walk on the wild side. (Home Pages).

He was alone, lost in the jungle. And night was coming.

A sickening sensation rose in his gut. He struggled for control, fighting the irrational panic he felt welling up inside.

No, he realized. That wasn't right.

The most frightening thing about his panic was that it wasn't irrational. This fear was well-founded, justified, reality-based. Barring a miracle, he was going to die in this jungle. Perhaps today in this very spot, alone in the jungle.

--Marlo Kirkpatrick, Extreme Exposure

These words aren't from the latest best-selling fictional thriller--they are a cold statement of the reality of an ill-fated trip that Madison wildlife photographer Stephen Kirkpatrick took to the Peruvian Amazon in 1995, when his party was completely lost for twelve days in an unmapped area of the rain forest.

But the couple found a silver lining in the experience, as seen in their simultaneous release of Extreme Exposure: The True Story of a Photo Expedition Lost in the Amazon by Mario and Romancing the Rain: A Photographic Journey into the Heart of the Amazon, a collection of Stephen's images of the rain forest's inhabitants, collected over nine years of travel to Peru.

Romancing the Rain documents the sights that compelled Stephen to come back and keep shooting through the rain, heat, and humidity, while Extreme Exposure illustrates the dangers that almost made the veteran photographer swear off ever returning again. The pull between the two impulses finds expression in the text of the photography book, written again by Mario.

The pair first collaborated on To Catch the Wind: A Photographer's Journey, which is seen as Kirkpatrick's first very personal work. When Stephen returned to the Amazon after the trip documented in Extreme Exposure, Marlo accompanied him, so she had a good idea of some of the hardships discussed in the narrative--the mud, the heat, and the constant rain. "A lot of that I have experienced firsthand," Marlo said.

The couple later married on a 1998 return trip to Machu Picchu, where Mario had her own Amazon struggles-a illness contracted on the trip left her at the mercy of Peruvian medical care. "It was especially distressing because it was my wedding!" Marlo said.

Romancing the Rain showcases what is both beautiful and fearsome about the rain forest--photos of parrots and macaws in flight alternate with extreme close-ups of huge, hairy tarantulas and jungle ants making off with their prey. Through the text, Stephen documents his move from pure love of the Amazon's beauty to a healthy respect for its harsh brutality, finally arriving at a place where he no longer asked anything of the region but that it stand still long enough for him to photograph it--what Stephen called an acceptance of the region's dual nature. "And instead of expecting it to humor me, I met the jungle on its own terms," Stephen said.

After reading about the perils awaiting a photographer in the rain forest in Extreme Exposure, one wonders that Stephen could bear to leave out any images so hard won. "Leaving anything out was terribly painful," Stephen said, while noting that he picked those that best supported the storyline of how his love for the region deepened over time.

Stephen balked when asked to select his favorite shot from the book. "That's like asking someone to pick out their favorite child!" he remarked. The cover shot was especially gratifying, he said, in that it captured the flora and fauna of the region in one image, while the sloth hanging from the tree over the river was literally a dream come true: eleven months earlier, Stephen had dreamed of this particular image while at home in Madison.

Pictures of an Amazon leaf frog and a veiled stinkhorn stand out as two of the more difficult shots: that particular species of frog only comes down from the canopy once a year to lay eggs in still water; Stephen found his shot with the aid of a naturalist friend. The veiled stinkhorn, on the other hand, he found by following his nose and shooting it at dawn before it disintegrated.

The theme of Extreme Exposure is twofold: Stephen's battle to survive the rain forest and his journey of faith that his God was real and cared for him, even in the middle of the Amazon. Marlo said that as she began work on the narrative, she worked with Stephen's journals, a videotape made by a member of the trip, and Stephen's vivid memories, and she met with Stephen's Peruvian guides. "Some of the lines are pulled directly from the videotape," said Mario. "There were parts--where he was reading it while I was writing it--where he got a little emotional."

Stephen is philosophical about the hardships detailed in the book, including living off the land and hiking 12 hours per day. "Giving up was not really an option," he said. "It kind of works on you mentally. It was just some optimism that when you wake up the next morning, it will be better."

As Marlo and Stephen began touring with the release of the books, Stephen received word that his last book, Wilder Mississippi, won a 2002 National Outdoor Book Award from among thirteen books nominated in the design and artistic merit category. Ron Watters, chair of the National Outdoor Book Awards, said, "What most of the reviewers noted was the collaboration between the book designer and the photographer."

"It won in all three of these areas--good writing, superb photography, and great design," said Watters. "(Kirkpatrick's) in there with some very good company."

Jamie Kornegay, manager at Square Books in Oxford, echoed Watters' praise. "The last book they did was big last holiday season," Kornegay said.

The couple's book signing at Square Books was well-attended as they began their tour, with people commenting on the power of Stephen's images. "I like the intimacy of the photographs," said Kornegay.

Upcoming projects for the Kirkpatricks include Mario's next revision of Mississippi Off the Beaten Path, a travel book that documents out-of-the-way Mississippi attractions, and planning for a possible book documenting a year of the Kirkpatricks' travel, tentatively called 52 Weeks. Readers can meet Mario and Stephen on February 20 at the Lauren Rogers Museum of Art in Laurel, along with other events in Booneville and Meridian in January.

And in September, Stephen goes back to the Amazon to lead an eight-member tour. Why? The closing words of Romancing the Rain give his answer: "I can honestly say I know this place. And I love it still."