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The first career retrospective of leading contemporary photographer Mona Kuhn

Mona Kuhn: Works is the first retrospective by one of the most respected and widely exhibited contemporary art photographers at work in the world today. Over a career spanning more than twenty years, Kuhn’s underlying theme has always been humanity’s longing for spiritual connection and solidarity. She is renowned for developing close relationships with her subjects, resulting in images of remarkable intimacy. Her use of playful visual strategies reveals glimpses into the psyche as it is expressed through the human form, ultimately reinterpreting the nude in the canon of contemporary art.

Featuring images from throughout Kuhn’s career, including previously unseen work, this book introduces her distinct aesthetic to a wide, popular audience. Texts by Rebecca Morse, Chris Littlewood, Darius Himes and Simon Baker, and an interview with Elizabeth Avedon, offer invaluable insights into Kuhn’s creative process and the ways in which she works with her subjects and settings, and achieves the visual signature of her imagery. Mona Kuhn: Works is an essential volume for anyone with an interest in the human form in contemporary art.

Contents List:

Introduction by Rebecca Morse • 1. Evidence 2000-2007 • 2. Native 2007-2009 • 3. Venezia 2009-2010 • In Conversation: Interview by Elizabeth Avedon • 5. Bordeaux Series 2009-2011 • Essay by Simon Baker • 6. Private 2012-2014 • 7. Bushes and Succulents 2017-2018 • 8. She Disappeared into Complete Silence 2014-2019

About the Author:

Mona Kuhn (b. 1969) is a Brazilian photographer of German descent. She has lived and worked in Los Angeles since 1989 and is currently an independent scholar at the Getty Research Institute. Her previous series-based monographs include Mona Kuhn: Photographs, Mona Kuhn: Evidence and Mona Kuhn: Private. Rebecca Morse is the Curator of the Wallis Annenberg Photography Department at LACMA. Simon Baker is the Director of the Maison Européenne de la Photographie (MEP) in Paris. He was previously Curator of Photography and International Art at Tate. Elizabeth Avedon is a photography book and exhibition designer, independent curator and writer.

Як наші найближчі родичі у тваринному світі, мавпи завжди захоплювали та розважали людей однаковою мірою. Monkeys – це видатна колекція фотографій, що зображують цих складних, розумних тварин у їхньому природному середовищі.

Книга поділена на розділи про мавп Старого Світу, мавп Нового Світу, родичів мавп, анатомію, поведінку та сім'ю, а також молодняк. У книзі Monkeys представлено широке розмаїття мавп, включаючи бабуїнів, горил, орангутанів, макаків, ревунів, павукоподібних мавп, ігрунів, гібонів, мандрилів та шимпанзе.

Найменша мавпа – це карликовий ігрун, який може мати довжину лише 117 міліметрів (4,6 дюйма) з хвостом 172 міліметри (6,8 дюйма) та вагу трохи більше 100 грамів (3,5 унції); тоді як масивна горила Грауера може важити понад 180 кілограмів (400 фунтів).

Monkeys з повними субтитрами, що пояснюють, як представники виду поводяться в групі, спілкуються, полюють, годуються та виховують своїх дитинчат, – це блискуче дослідження цього дивовижного виду, зібране на 230 видатних кольорових фотографіях.

Про автора:

Том Джексон – провідний автор природничої історії з Великої Британії. Як автор і дописувач, він працював над більш ніж 60 книгами. Закінчив факультет зоології Брістольського університету, він також працював доглядачем зоопарку та в сафарі-парках Зімбабве.

Друга книга Мотмайстера: ще більша та неземніша

У Dark & ​​Dystopian Post Mortem Fairy Tales Mothmeister — двоголове альтер-его анонімного бельгійського мистецького дуету — віддає належне багатьом музам, які створили його тривожний і ексцентричний світ мрій.

Вони варіюються від митців з усього світу, легендарних постатей і міфів і химерної колекції таксидермії до пустельних місць, де народилися найгротескніші та часто меланхолійні персонажі, такі як жахливі катакомби капуцинів у Палермо, покинуте неземне місто Піраміда на Шпіцбергені та місце Чорнобильської катастрофи.

Усе це переливається в унікальну казкову країну, яка заграє з хворобливими, релігійними та часто клоунськими речами, де тварин-таксидермії повертаються до життя найнезвичайнішими способами.

Про автора:

Антиутопічний світ мрій двоголового бельгійського альтер-его Мотмейстера інтригує понад 250 тисяч підписників в Instagram по всьому світу. Їх похмурі казкові персонажі, що безупинно мутують, віддають данину таксидермії. Музи Мотмейстера? Їхня вражаюча приватна колекція опудал тварин, масок, костюмів, численні міжнародні художники, з якими вони співпрацюють, і їхня нестримна жага до подорожей.

Mountains, one of nature’s greatest masterpieces, in their rugged beauty, breathtaking views from the top, clear air, green pastures, mountain lakes and glaciers, have captivated mankind all along. Climbing mountains or just gazing at their majestic splendour causes us to slow down and contemplate, maybe even giving us a little serenity.

Photographer Tim Hall beautifully captures the powerful solace of mountains in his images. He often chooses to shoot in dramatic weather, making his work and the photographed mountains look even more stunning and transcendent. The intention to strike an emotional or spiritual chord is evident in much of his landscape work, which is inspired by Rothko and Turner. The influence of painting in his work stems from his studies of Art History at Manchester University.

Mountains: Beyond the Clouds presents the extensive Alpine mountain range, including famous landmarks such as the Mont Blanc, the Matterhorn, and the Dolomites. 

About the Author:
 
Tim Hall is a British Fine Art Photographer, who specializes in travel, landscape, and portraiture. His drive to see the world through the lens of a camera was inspired by the romance of 19th-century travellers and more recently, National Geographic photographers. The work is a lyrical response to the people and places that he has visited and shows his deep interest in the urban and natural world as well as the people who inhabit them. With over 20 years of experience as a project-based photographer, his works are often conceived as a series, exhibited as a collective body, or bought as single pieces. Tim lives in London and is represented by contemporary art galleries across Europe, South East Asia, and the USA.

- A breathtaking photographic ode to the Alps
- With additional information on the shown regions and mountains

An expanded edition of the popular landscape and photography book, celebrating the most majestic mountains and historic cycling climbs for enthusiasts and participants around the world.

The mountains of Europe have many different meanings to many different people. For the locals they are a way of life; for visitors they represent breathtaking beauty, active holidays and peaceful moments. For cyclists, however, the dramatic landscapes mean something quite different: suffering, pain, agony and glory. For over a century the mountains have provided the setting for the greatest cycling contests, where human determination and willpower can triumph over nature and opponents.

In recent years, as cycling s popularity has changed our cities, made us more active and taken us down less-travelled roads, the mountains of Europe have become the primary destination for everyday riders who want to challenge themselves, experience the storied roads and escape their everyday lives. This publication is aimed at all who wish to be inspired by those challenges or celebrate those personal victories. With tributes and personal recollections from leading road cyclists, the photographs and words coalesce into a visual depiction that transcends any single perspective and will inspire awe and wonder in anyone who wishes to confront the power of the mountains.

Table of Contents:

Introduction by Michael Blann • The Art of Mountains, Susannah Osborne • The French Alps • The Pyrenees & Mont Ventoux • Switzerland • Spain • The Spanish Islands & Portugal • The Italian Alps & The Dolomites • Essays interwoven throughout

About the Authors:

Professional photographer and keen amateur cyclist Michael Blann spent his formative years racing his bike and dreaming of riding in the Tour de France. Aged nineteen, he left England for Australia to ride in a well-respected amateur team, during which he competed in the nine-day Golden West Tour in Queensland. This experience left him with the realization that a pro contract was out of reach. Returning to the UK, he enrolled in art college and eventually moved into advertising. This book brings together Blann’s two great passions – cycling and photography – and evolved from a desire to produce a definitive record of the immense, immovable landforms that have set the stage for the most intense, nail-biting dramas the cycling world has ever seen. Limited-edition prints are available at www.michaelblann.com.

Andrew Diprose is Group Creative Director at WIRED magazine in London and a keen cyclist. He lectures regularly on art direction, photography and illustration. He is also the co-founder, publisher and art director of cycling independent title The Ride Journal.

Susannah Osborne is a journalist and has written for numerous newspapers and magazines on the subjects of travel, fitness and adventure sport. She has cycled since her late teens, first as a means to get around her native North Devon, and later as an active member of the women’s road and criterium racing scene in the UK. She worked and cycled with Michael Blann for several years before teaming up with him on this book, which appeals to her love of storytelling and her long-standing fascination with dramatic landscapes.

Dealing with the most famous peaks on the planet, divided into the various continents, the book presents, among others, the peaks of the Himalayas and the Karakorum, which form “the roof of the world”. And of course, there is Patagonia, an extreme place, a frontier of the imagination full of natural scenarios that seem to be the beginning and the end of everything.

Looking through Mountains, you will discover a new dimension of the African continent, from the sheer cliffs of the Atlas canyons to the snows of Kilimanjaro and Ruwenzori. The great north of Alaska will offer visions of that kingdom of frost over which Denali, the highest mountain on the North American continent, towers over 6,000 metres. Europe and the Alps, with the magic of the Dolomites ― a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 2009 ― will close the extraordinary journey between the peaks that have always fascinated man. If you don't suffer from vertigo, we will take you really high up.

The reader will be accompanied on this extraordinary adventure by famous fellow travellers who were fascinated by the power of the mountains and whose immortal pages they left behind: quotations from Dante Alighieri, John Muir, Paulo Coelho, Victor Hugo, Lord Byron, Jane Austen, Friedrich Nietzsche, William Shakespeare, Jeanne Moreau, J.R.R Tolkien and Haruki Murakami will be juxtaposed with the most spectacular images of these rock formations that are scattered over the entire surface of the Earth.

Naomi Campbell is a phenomenon. Still very much at the top of her game after nearly four decades in the fashion industry, news of her trailblazing work, both on and off the catwalk, continues to hit the front pages as she pushes the boundaries of the fashion world. Inspiring, creative, energetic and most definitely iconic, Campbell stands apart as a unique force.

Opening with a specially commissioned interview by Tim Blanks, this book showcases more than 20 of the most eloquent ensembles from across her career, personally selected and discussed by Campbell herself. It also explores the different facets of her success - from her work as a model, a muse and brand builder, to life beyond the catwalk as a cultural leader with her unerring support of emerging designers.

With spectacular looks from Azzedine Alaïa, Gianni Versace, Chanel, Alexander McQueen and Kenneth Ize - to name but a few - this is an exclusive look into the world of one of fashion's most talented and enduring personalities.

About the Authors:

Sonnet Stanfill is Senior Curator of Textiles and Fashion at the V&A.

Elisabeth Murray is Exhibition Project Curator at the V&A.

Чудово ілюстрована фотографіями NASA, великоформатна (30 × 30 см) книга NASA Missions to Mars досліджує все: від перших невпевнених кроків до четвертої планети до посадки марсохода «Perseverance» у 2021 році та далі.

Дослідження космосу завжди було розширенням меж, але, мабуть, досягненням, яке найбільше викликало відчуття можливостей, стало дослідження Марса. Починаючи з радянських та американських прольотів на початку 1960-х років, які були невід'ємною частиною космічної гонки, відомий історик космосу Пірс Бізоні продовжує повним висвітленням місій «Вікінг 1» та «Вікінг 2» 1975–1976 років. «Бізоні» також відстежує відому програму марсоходів NASA, описуючи розробку, технології, історію місій та досягнення марсоходів «Соджорнер», «Оппортюніті», «Спіріт» та «К'юріосіті» — і все це до 25-ї річниці їхньої першої посадки.

Ця захоплива книга містить:

- Захопливу та повну історію дослідження Марса
- Скарбницю зображень з архівів NASA, включаючи фотографії та картографію, передані додому, твори мистецтва та концептуальні малюнки, створені на етапах розробки, а також фотографії, створені для документування етапів тестування
- Огляд майбутніх планів дослідження та проживання на Марсі
- Висвітлення орбітальних апаратів, відправлених на червону планету не лише NASA, а й космічними агентствами з Росії, Індії, Японії, Європи, Китаю та ОАЕ
- Двосторонній розкладний аркуш розміром 60 см

Захоплення людства Марсом можна простежити ще з довоєнної наукової фантастики. Хоча мільярди доларів та геніальні інновації дозволили нам отримати неймовірні краєвиди з відстані понад 51 мільйона миль, не менш неймовірними є й розуміння, яке ці місії, обладнання та вчені надали нашому Всесвіту — і нашій власній планеті. NASA Missions to Mars — це ваша повна ілюстрована історія цих зусиль та необхідний том для книжкової полиці будь-якого ентузіаста космосу!

Про автора:

Пірс Бізоні — досвідчений мультимедійний фахівець, який писав про науку та історію технологій для широкого кола видавництв по всьому світу, а також виконував великі проекти для медіа-відділів NASA та ESA. Він також має значний досвід у кіно- та телевізійній індустрії. Автор книг Moonshots, The Art of NASA, NASA Space Shuttle: 40th Anniversary, Бізоні також тісно співпрацював з родиною Стенлі Кубрика, разом з Warner Bros. та видавництвами образотворчого мистецтва Taschen, над книгою великого формату про створення фільму 2001: A Space Odyssey.

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Погортати книгу NASA Missions to Mars: A Visual History of Our Quest to Explore the Red Planet на Google Books

Written and curated by recognized historians of space exploration, NASA Space Shuttle: 40th Anniversary is the authoritative photo history of the iconic space program.

Officially known as the Space Transportation System (STS), the Space Shuttle program operated from 1981 to 2011. During that time, five Shuttle systems took part in 135 missions under the operation of NASA. This approach — namely reusable spacecraft —revolutionized space exploration. NASA Space Shuttle: 40th Anniversary traces the STS’s 30-year operational history. Essays by former NASA chief historian Roger Launius are accompanied by a collection of incredible Shuttle photography and imagery mined from the depths of NASA’s archives by aerospace historian Piers Bizony — all of it presented in large-format color.

Readers will witness the pre-1981 evolution, the missions, astronauts, ground personnel and infrastructure, and amazing accomplishments of the Shuttle program and its spacecraft: Columbia, Challenger, Discovery, Atlantis, and Endeavour. From the launch site at Cape Kennedy, Florida, to mission control in Houston, Texas, to the landing site at Edwards Air Force Base, all aspects of Shuttle operation are covered, including key roles in efforts such as the Hubble Telescope and International Space Station, as well as the tragedies of Challenger and Columbia disasters.

Every carefully chosen image in NASA Space Shuttle: 40th Anniversary tells an aspect of the Shuttle story. The resulting book is not only a unique view of a key chapter of NASA history — it’s a compelling collection of stunning NASA photography and illustrations.

About the Author:

Piers Bizony is an experienced multimedia professional who has written about science and the history of technology for a wide variety of publishers worldwide, and has undertaken major projects for the media departments at NASA and ESA. He has also gained substantial experience within the film and television industries. The author of Quarto’s Moonshots, The Art of NASA, NASA Missions to Mars: A Visual History of Our Quest to Explore the Red Planet, and other titles, Bizony also worked closely with the family of Stanley Kubrick, in conjunction with Warner Bros. and fine art publishers Taschen, on a large-format book about the making of 2001: A Space Odyssey.

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Пролистать книгу NASA Space Shuttle: 40th Anniversary на Google Books

National Portrait Gallery: The Collection is published to celebrate the reopening of the Gallery after a three-year redevelopment project.

Designed by Daniela Rocha, this engaging and inviting book takes the reader on a chronological journey through Britain’s history in portraiture, from the Tudors to Now, featuring the country’s most impactful and famous individuals, from Queen Elizabeth I to Mary Seacole, and Virginia Woolf to David Bowie. The book is richly illustrated with beautiful paintings, photographs, sculptures, drawings and digital works.

Readers will enjoy a selection of the most popular and recognisable portraits from the Collection, accompanied by short chapter introductions that introduce key historical periods, their most exciting figures, and their most important historical, political, social and cultural moments. This accessible structure allows the reader to dip into any of the beautiful portraits and their stories, and understand their place in British history.

An Introduction by Director Dr. Nicholas Cullinan will highlight why portraiture has been fundamental to people and society historically, but also to contemporary audiences, by exploring themes of culture, identity and the representation of diversity. This will also introduce readers to the nation’s newly reopened National Portrait Gallery, explaining how it came to be the nation’s home of portraits and the world’s most significant Collection of people.

About the Author:

Rab MacGibbon is Cross-Collections Curator at the National Portrait Gallery, London. He is the author of Icons and Identities (2021), and a contributor to Love Stories: Art, Passion & Tragedy (2020), Elizabethan Treasures: Miniatures from Hilliard to Oliver (2019) and The Lost Prince: The Life & Death of Henry Stuart (2012).

Dr Nicholas Cullinan is Director of the National Portrait Gallery, London.

Another country: Introducing America to Americans

Amid the ravages of the Great Depression, the United States Farm Security Administration (FSA) was first founded in 1935 to address the country s rural poverty. Its efforts focused on improving the lives of sharecroppers, tenants, and very poor landowning farmers, with resettlement and collectivization programs, as well as modernized farming methods. In a parallel documentation program, the FSA hired a number of photographers and writers to record the lives of the rural poor and introduce America to Americans.

This book records the full reach of the FSA program from 1935 to 1943, honoring its vigor and commitment across subjects, states, and stylistic preferences. The photographs are arranged into four broad regional sections but otherwise allowed to speak for themselves to provide individual impressions as much as they cumulatively build an indelible survey of a nation. Through color and black-and-white images, we meet convicts, cotton workers, kids on the street, and relocated workers on the road. We see subjects victim to the elements of nature and the timeless rituals of human life, as much as to the vagaries of the global economic market. We meet Dorothea Lange s iconic Migrant Mother, weather-beaten and worn, with two children leaning on her shoulders.

What unites all of the pictures is a commitment to the individuality and dignity of each subject, as much as to the witness they bear to this particular period of the American past and to universal cycles of growing, playing, eating, aging, ailing, and dying. Through the lenses of such perceptive, sensitive photographers as Dorothea Lange, Jack Delano, Russell Lee, Marion Post Wolcott, Walker Evans, and Ben Shahn, subjects are entrenched in the hardships of their historical lot, caught in the loop of humanity, and yet face the viewer with what is utterly their own: a unique, irreplaceable, often unforgettable presence.

About the series:

Bibliotheca Universalis — Compact cultural companions celebrating the eclectic TASCHEN universe at an unbeatable, democratic price!

Since we started our work as cultural archaeologists in 1980, TASCHEN has become synonymous with accessible, open-minded publishing. Bibliotheca Universalis brings together more than 100 of our all-time favourite titles in a neat new format so you can curate your own affordable library of art, anthropology, and aphrodisia.

Bookworm’s delight — never bore, always excite!

Першокласна вулична фотографія з мистецькими амбіціями.

New York Street Diaries — це вражаюча журнальна книга для всіх шанувальників Великого Яблука. Філ Пенман показує велике місто на східному узбережжі США зі сторони, яку рідко побачиш, тихо і спокійно. Фотографії були зроблені частково під час великої снігової бурі та частково під час блокування корони, тому вони є сучасними свідками пандемічних обмежень, які повністю перевернули наш раніше відомий світ з ніг на голову. Народився у Великій Британії (Пул, Дорсет), він фотографує вулиці Нью-Йорка вже більше двох десятиліть. Він відомий, серед іншого, своїми фотографіями відомих особистостей, таких як Майкл Джексон, Мадонна, Дженніфер Лопес або Білл Гейтс. Коли 11 вересня 2001 року найбільша трагедія в історії Нью-Йорка сколихнула місто, Філ Пенман був на місці та створив унікальні кадри подій за допомогою своєї камери.

Пенмен знає, як вражаюче зафіксувати місто в його найчутливіші моменти. Він ловить інтимні моменти на своїх чорно-білих фотографіях і показує людей і вулиці Нью-Йорка далеко від суєти. Міське життя мегаполісу представлено настільки близько, що деякі картини неминуче викликають посмішку у глядача. Пенмен буквально катапультує свого глядача в сцену з освіжаючою прямотою та відчуттям справжньої присутності.

- Далеко від метушні Нью-Йорка: чорно-білі фотографії зі спокійною естетикою та атмосферою.
- З чудовими кадрами безлюдних вулиць Нью-Йорка під час карантину через Covid.
- Для тих, хто шукає виняткову книжку про Нью-Йорк.

Текст англійською та німецькою мовами.

Про автора:

Фотограф Філ Пенман, який народився у Великій Британії та проживає в Нью-Йорку, документував стрімкий потік вулиць Нью-Йорка протягом понад 25 років. Маючи різноманітних клієнтів від журналу People до The Daily Telegraph, він фотографував живих легенд, зокрема Дженніфер Лопес і Білла Гейтса, а також фіксував історичні моменти, такі як терористичні атаки 11 вересня. Особливий стиль, універсальність і відданість своїй справі Пенмана принесли йому престижні нагороди та виставки, а також визнання одного з «52 найвпливовіших вуличних фотографів».

The soul of New York. A photographic journey through the history of the world's greatest city

This book presents the epic story of New York on nearly 600 pages of emotional, atmospheric photographs, from the mid-19th century to the present day. Supplementing this treasure trove of images are over a hundred quotations and references from relevant books, movies, shows and songs. The city's fluctuating fortunes are all represented, from the wild nights of the Jazz Age and the hedonistic disco era to the grim days of the Depression and the devastation of 9/11 and its aftermath, as its broken-hearted but unbowed citizens picked up the pieces. 

New York's remarkable rise, reinvention and growth is not just the tale of a city, but the story of a nation, From the building of the Brooklyn Bridge to the immigrants arriving at Ellis Island; from the slums of the Lower East Side to the magnificent art deco skyscrapers. The urban beach of Coney Island and the sleaze of Times Square; the vistas of Central Park and the crowds on 5th Avenue. The streets, the sidewalks, the chaos, the energy, the ethnic diversity, the culture, the fashion, the architecture, the anger and the complexity of the city is all laid out in this beautiful book block and block. This is the greatest city in the world after all and great are its extremes, contradictions and attitude.

More than just a remarkable tribute to the metropolis and its civic, social, and photographic heritage, New York: Portrait of a City pays homage to the indomitable spirit of those who call themselves New Yorkers: full of hope and strength, resolute in their determination to succeed among its glass and granite towers.

Features hundreds of iconic images, sourced from dozens of archives and private collections — many never before published — and the work of over 150 celebrated photographers, including: Victor Prevost, Jacob Riis, Lewis Hine, Alfred Stieglitz, Paul Strand, Berenice Abbott, Walker Evans, Weegee, Margaret Bourke-White, Saul Leiter, Esther Bubley, Arnold Newman, William Claxton, Ralph Gibson, Ryan McGinley, Mitch Epstein, Steve Schapiro, Marvin Newman, Allen Ginsberg, Joel Meyerowitz, Andreas Feininger, Charles Cushman, Joseph Rodriguez, Garry Winogrand, Larry Fink, Jamel Shabazz, Allan Tannenbaum, Bruce Davidson, Helen Levitt, Eugene de Salignac, Ruth Orkin, Joel Sternfeld, Keizo Kitajima, and many many more.

The editor and author:

Reuel Golden is the former editor of the British Journal of Photography and the Photography editor at TASCHEN. His TASCHEN titles include: Mick Rock: The Rise of David Bowie, both London and New York Portrait of a City books, The Rolling Stones, Her Majesty, Football in the 1970s, the National Geographic editions, the David Bailey SUMO and Andy Warhol. Polaroids.

Three years after the conclusion of his trilogy, On This Earth, A Shadow Falls, Across the Ravaged Land, Nick Brandt returns to East Africa to photograph the escalating changes to the continent’s natural world.

In a series of epic panoramas, Brandt records the impact of man in places where animals used to roam, but no longer do. In each location, Brandt erects a life size panel of one of his animal portrait photographs, setting the panels within a world of explosive urban development, factories, wasteland and quarries.

The people within the photographs are oblivious to the presence of the panels and the animals featured in them, who are now no more than ghosts in the landscape. Some of the animals in the panels appear to be looking out at these destroyed landscapes with sadness, as if lamenting the loss of the world they once inhabited. By the end, we see that it is not just the animals who are the victims in this out of control world, but also the humans.

Inherit the Dust also includes plates of the original portraits of the animals that are featured in the life-size panels, the unique emotional animal portraiture for which Brandt is recognized.

There are also two essays by the artist: a text about the crisis facing the conservation of the natural world in East Africa, and behind-the-scenes descriptions of Brandt's elaborate production process, with accompanying documentary photographs.

About the Author:

Nick Brandt (b.1964) is an English-born, US-based photographer whose themes always relate to the disappearing natural world. He is the co-founder of the Big Life Foundation, in Kenya, where all of these photographs were shot.

Working in colour for the first time, Nick Brandt’s latest project uses complex composition and dramatically cinematic staging to highlight environmental degradation in the world and its effect on both animal and human life

This Empty World, Nick Brandt’s new monograph, features a series of dramatically staged photographs that bring together and reveal the animals and people of East Africa as the victims of environmental degradation in an emotionally powerful, cinematic way.

Moving into colour photography for the first time, the work is both a technical tour-de-force and a massively ambitious project in which the sets are constructed on a scale typically seen in major film production. Each panoramic image is a combination of two moments in time, almost all of them captured weeks apart from the exact same camera position.

Brandt first builds and lights a partial set, then waits for the animals that inhabit the region to enter the frame. Once captured on camera, the full set is built with the camera remaining fixed in place. The sets include bridge and highway construction sites, a petrol station, a bus station and even a dead forest. Completing the scene with a huge cast drawn from local communities, Brandt then photographs the second sequence. The final large scale prints are a composite of the two intricately plotted elements.

Viewed as a whole, the images vividly illustrate a world in which, overwhelmed by runaway human development, there is no longer space for animals to survive, and beg the question: what kind of world will we live in when stripped of its natural wonders.

About the Author:

Nick Brandt (b.1964) is an English-born, US-based photographer whose themes always relate to the disappearing natural world. He is the co-founder of the Big Life Foundation, in Kenya, where all of these photographs were shot.