Video: The Man Behind the Lens

To see more photos from Frans Lanting visit www.lanting.com!

The David A. Straz, Jr. Center for the Performing Arts presents National Geographic photographer Frans Lanting on Tuesday, Feb. 21, 2012, at 7 p.m. in Ferguson Hall as the second installment in the second season of the National Geographic Live! speaker series created to showcase the writers, photographers, filmmakers, scientists, explorers and adventurers who bring the world home.  The series is funded in part by the Joy McCann Foundation.

Lanting has been hailed as one of the great nature photographers of our time. His influential work appears in books, magazines and exhibitions around the world and has been commissioned frequently by the National Geographic Society, where he has served as a photographer-in-residence.

For more than two decades Lanting has documented wildlife and our relationship with nature in environments from the Amazon to Antarctica. He portrays wild creatures as ambassadors for the preservation of complete ecosystems, and his many publications have increased worldwide awareness of endangered ecological treasures in the far corners of the Earth.

Lanting's books have received awards and acclaim: "No one turns animals into art more completely than Frans Lanting," wrote the New Yorker. His books include Life: A Journey Through Time, Jungles, Penguin, Living Planet, Eye to Eye, Bonobo: The Forgotten Ape, Okavango: Africa's Last Eden, Forgotten Edens and Madagascar: A World Out of Time.

Lanting has received numerous awards for his work as a photographer and conservationist, including top honors from World Press Photo, the Sierra Club's Ansel Adams Award, the title of BBC Wildlife Photographer of the Year and Sweden's Lennart Nilsson Award. Prince Bernhard of the Netherlands inducted him as a knight in the Royal Order of the Golden Ark, that country's highest conservation honor.

Regularly priced tickets for the Tuesday, Feb. 21, 7 p.m., presentation by Frans Lanting start at $19.50 and may be purchased by calling 813.229.STAR (7827) or 800.955.1045 outside Tampa Bay, in person at the Straz Center Ticket Office or online at www.strazcenter.org. For more information about the Straz Center for the Performing Arts and its upcoming events, please visit www.strazcenter.org.