Monday, November 16, 2009

The Vanishing

Nick Brandt first fell in love with Africa while shooting a Michael Jackson video in Tanzania, and over time has come to see how vulnerable the continent's wildlife and beauty is.



He photographs animals as though he was doing the portrait of a human being... casting them in a light that shows some of their nature. Brandt doesn't use a telephoto lens either, getting close to the animals. I think his work is phenomenal.









Brandt's books
On This Earth and Shadow Falls reflect the fragile situation African wildlife finds itself in, and hopes to capture it before it disappears. For our sakes, I hope his view is overly-pessimistic and that his images will one day simply document a time when when African wildlife was simply not valued as much as it should.

As seen on Habitually Chic... be sure to click on the images to see them bigger.

2 comments:

Michele said...

Wow, that elephant shot is just superb!

How on earth does he get that close to his subjects, I wonder? He must go out with rangers / trackers on foot. Which I think I'm much too much of a ninny to ever attempt. :)

kbd said...

I know! Maybe he uses a hide... I don't know but I'm the kind of who freaks out in a car when I'm 20 feet from an elephant, so I certainly couldn't do it!