Nick Brandt Knihy

A large collection of 57 tritone images depicting the fate of Africa's large animals.

Across the Ravaged Land is the third and final volume in Nick Brandt’s trilogy of books documenting the disappearing animals of eastern Africa. The book offers a darker vision of this world, still filled with a stunning beauty but now tragically tainted and fast disappearing at the hands of man.In addition to a range of starkly powerful animal portraits, Brandt introduces some new themes, as humans make an appearance for the first time. He also contributes two essays summing up his photographic odyssey, which has taken more than a decade of intensive work to complete.

Nick Brandt depicts the animals of East Africa with an intimacy and artistry unmatched by other photographers who choose wildlife as their subject. He creates these majestic sepia and blue-tone photos contrasting moments of quintessential stillness with bursts of dramatic action by engaging with these creatures on an exceptionally intimate level, without the customary use of a telephoto lens. Evocative of classical art, from dignified portraits to sweeping natural tableaux, Brandt's images artfully and simply capture animals in their natural states of being. With a foreword by Alice Sebold and an introduction by Jane Goodall, On This Earth is a gorgeous portfolio of some of the last wild animals and a heartfelt elegy to a vanishing world.

In his latest project, Nick Brandt employs vibrant color and intricate compositions to powerfully depict environmental degradation and its impact on both wildlife and humanity. Through dramatically cinematic staging, he captures the urgent need for awareness and action regarding ecological issues.

Some of Nick Brandt’s subjects are humans, some are animals, but they all are creatures of equal and obvious personhood. The overwhelming sense in the photographer’s ongoing global series The Day May Break is that they are all figuring out how to live in a new world. Each has arrived at the shoot at Senda Verde wildlife sanctuary in Bolivia through their own cascade of tragedy. Both extreme droughts and floods have destroyed people’s homes and livelihoods. Victims of habitat destruction and wildlife trafficking, the animals are rescues that can never be released to the wild. People and animals were photographed in the same frame and indeed convey a sense of connectedness through a shared fate. Fog is the unifying visual, symbolic of the natural world rapidly fading from view; and an echo of the smoke from wildfires, intensified by climate change, devastating so much of the planet. But in spite of their loss, these people and animals are survivors, pioneers entering the new phase our world has reached. In The Day May Break they share their powerful stories. NICK BRANDT (*1964, London) studied painting and film at St. Martin’s School of Art, London. In 1992 he moved to California, where he still lives today. Since 2001, he has documented the destructive impact that humankind is having on the natural world and, as a result, on humans themselves. Chapter One of his seminal series The Day May Break featured photographs taken in Zimbabwe and Kenya in late 2020. Chapter Two, shot in Bolivia in 2022, is the first time in his 20 year career that Brandt has made work outside of Africa.

Das neue Werk des preisgekrönten Fotografen Nick Brandt - im Abschlussband seiner Trilogie gelingt es ihm einmal mehr, die Schönheit, aber auch die Verletzlichkeit der Wildnis in atemberaubender Monumentalität einzufangen. In diesem Buch möchte er ganz besonders auf die Gefährdungen aufmerksam machen, die Eingriffe des Menschen und der Klimawandel für die Schönheit der Natur bedeuten. Seine spezielle Technik vermittelt den faszinierten Betrachtern weltweit seit Jahren ein geradezu magisches Bild der Wildnis im Osten Afrikas. Der Ausnahmefotograf pirscht sich mit einer analogen Mittelformatkamera ohne Teleobjektiv bis auf wenige Meter an wilde Tiere heran und schafft mit geschickt eingesetzten Filtern den geheimnisvoll wirkenden Sepiaton seiner Schwarz-Weiß-Aufnahmen. Der atmosphärischen Wirkung dieser majestätischen Bilder kann sich kaum ein Betrachter entziehen.

Die majestätischen Schwarzweißbilder von Nick Brandt rauben dem Betrachter in ihrer einzigartigen Monumentalität fast den Atem. Sie sind das Ergebnis einer ausgeklügelten Technik des Ausnahmefotografen, der sich mit einer analogen Mittelformatkamera Pentax 67 ohne Teleobjektiv bis auf wenige Meter an seine Objekte heranpirscht. Geduldig wartet er bis zu mehreren Stunden, um die Tiere in teils fast unwirklich erscheinenden Inszenierungen auf seinen Film zu bannen. Mit minimalen Bearbeitungen der Hintergründe in den Negativ-Scans schafft er abschließend die besondere atmosphärische Wirkung seiner idyllisch-romantischen Bilder, die den Betrachter so magisch anzieht.