Virtuoso Life - July/August 2008 - (Page 25) CONTRIBUTORS Photographer ANDREW ECCLES (“On Top of the World,” page 118) grew up in Toronto and has worked professionally in New York City since 1987. “I’ve shot at the White House several times, spent the day with brilliant entertainers, and photographed famous athletes,” Eccles says. “It’s fair to say that this was one of the best professional experiences I’ve had. After the shoot I swam on an empty beach, then had dinner and many glasses of wine with Sir Richard Branson himself, who is as charming as I’ve always heard and the most humble and gracious host imaginable.” Vanity Fair, Esquire, and Rolling Stone are among the magazines that have featured Eccles’ images on their covers. SKIP HOLLANDSWORTH has interviewed celeb- rities such as Tommy Lee Jones, Sandra Bullock, and Farrah Fawcett, but he felt “blessed by the gods” when assigned to interview Richard Branson and Matthew Upchurch on Necker Island (“On Top of the World,” page 118). Due to other commitments, he spent a mere two hours on the British Virgin Island. “I got a glimpse of heaven,” he says, “and then, as I rushed away, I also got a sense of what hell must be like – the realization that you just lost your chance to live in paradise.” Hollandsworth is an executive editor at Texas Monthly. New York City-based writer SHIVANI VORA (“North Island Impressions,” page 130) has climbed Mount Sinai in Egypt for sunrise, drifted over Cappadocia’s ferry chimneys in a hot-air balloon, and navigated the raging rapids at Iguaçu Falls in Brazil. But this story brought her one step closer to her ultimate travel dream: escaping to a remote private island. “A place like North Island can satisfy almost any wish,” she says. “Oceanside seafood and chocolate feasts at midnight, a four-handed massage at dawn, diving face to face with giant sea turtles – whatever I want, it’s mine.” A former travel writer for Forbes.com, Vora has published articles in the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, and Time. Writer WILLIAM KISSEL (“Africa, As Imagined,” page 106) received a true taste of Africa when a rare Rothschild giraffe licked the side of his face during a visit to the Giraffe Centre outside Nairobi. “It was a long, dry lick that covered my entire left cheek,” he recalls. “Giraffes have 17-inch-long tongues; you know when you’ve been licked.” Kissel’s previous African adventures include a 2.3-mile underground excursion to the bottom of South Africa’s Savuka Gold Mine, considered the deepest human-made hole in the world. He has spent the past three decades on global assignments for the Los Angeles Times, American Way, and Robb Report, among other publications. J U LY | A U G U S T 2 0 0 8 25
For optimal viewing of this digital publication, please enable JavaScript and then refresh the page. If you would like to try to load the digital publication without using Flash Player detection, please click here.