Fourteen years ago Bill Zorn left the high-pressured world of emergency medicine. Unable to practice his profession due to chronic illness, Zorn embarked on an adventure that has taken him to China, Iran, Scotland, the American southwest, and beyond, capturing what he has seen through the lens of his camera.
A native of Jesup, Georgia, Zorn now calls St. Simons Island home. Zorn traveled around the country playing music before deciding to pursue a career in medicine. After graduating from Tulane Medical School, Zorn practiced emergency medicine in Waycross and at the Brunswick Campus of Southeast Georgia Health System before his health forced him to quit. "I had puttered around with photography. Then I got an Ansel Adams book, and that was very different from what I had been taking with my little Nikon," says Zorn, whose only formal photography education was a single workshop. Not one to be intimidated, he began experimenting, using Adams as inspiration. "I'm largely self-taught by the internet, that great educator," he says, smiling. "I was on the internet before the internet was cool."
Zorn adds, "When I started I did typical things - landscapes, waterfalls, storms - now those things re ally don't appeal to me. I like having a theme to work around. I start with a little idea and see it emerge from the photos like an author without an outline developing a character."
Determined to learn all he could, Zorn soon moved from simple landscapes to subjects he says "have more social significance. I saw a documentary on
television about the Three Gorges in China and it had many of the same elements of the Boulder Dam in the 1950's that Ansel Adams photographed. The area is very beautiful and is a great people story – in the name of progress the area was flooded and the places I photographed are now under water."
In 2000 Zorn decided to journey to the Three Gorges before the landscape vanished beneath the waves, but at that time, China was considered "the enemy" and getting there was no simple task. "On my first trip I was detained for three days and they tried take my film," Zorn says. However, he persisted, and on that initial trip, he struck up a friendship with his guide, Liu Liqun. That trip led to three more and resulted in Zorn's self-published book, The Three Gorges. Zorn not only took the photos, developed the film, and printed the photos, but he also designed the book and personally oversaw its printing in China. Images from the book can be found on his web site, which, ironically, is banned in China.
Regardless of what big project Zorn tackles next, he is happy with where the last 14 years have taken him. "It was difficult to leave medicine, but now photography fulfills me. It combines two things I love - art and science. I can't wait to see what's next."
By Cynthia Robinson
As published in the December 2006 issue of Elegant Island Living
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