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Jim began a varied career in 1958 when he flew half way around the world to Singapore and then Jakarta and followed the Malay Archipelago east through Java, Bali and Sumbawa to Komodo Island to get some of the first color films of the Komodo dragon. The year 2008 was his 50th anniversary as a wildlife photographer, and he celebrated the event by publishing The Wildlife Art & Adventures of Jim Kern Photographer. His pictures have appeared in major magazines and books. He is also a writer and has written for AUDUBON, BACKPACKER, NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC and others. He is a lecturer and has lectured on wildlife and conservation subjects throughout Florida since the late '60s. With the publication of Face and The Wildlife Art & Adventures of Jim Kern Photographer, he is also a publisher and editor. He is a naturalist, as well, and has published a scientific paper in ZOOLOGICA: Observations on the Habits of the Proboscis Monkey, Nasalis larvatus (wurmb), Made in the Brunei Bay Area, Borneo.
Jim Kern is an avid hiker and backpacker. In 1966, he founded the Florida Trail and the Florida Trail Association. In 1978, he co-founded the American Hiking Society with Bill Kemsley, founding editor and publisher of Backpacker Magazine, and Paul Pritchard, then president of the Appalachian Trail Conference. In 1990, he founded Big City Mountaineers. He was the president of the Florida Trail Association for its first 12 years, president of the American Hiking Society for its first nine years and president and board chairman of Big City Mountaineers for its first nine years.
More about wildlife photography:
Since his college days, Jim Kern wanted to be a wildlife photographer and experience the adventure of finding and filming rare and dramatic birds and animals in remote parts of the world. He got the first color pictures of the resplendent quetzal in the mountain rain forests of Costa Rica. He photographed the Komodo dragon for NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC and the Proboscis monkey for ANIMALS. He tried and failed to get the first color photographs of the Javan rhinoceros in Ujung Kulon, Java. His quests also took him to Baffin Island, Kenya and Rwanda, the Parks of India, Luzon in the Philippines, Kalimantan in Indonesia, the Ryukyu Islands in Japan and many other places closer to home.
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Jim Kern has been a real estate broker since 1960, specializing in the brokerage of vacant land. By 1969 he was also serving as trustee for land purchases. In the 1980s he increased his responsibilities by serving as a general partner in buying and selling land.
Jim lives in St. Johns County, Florida
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