African Animal Book Reviews: Brandt and Beard

By Geoff Wittig

The fields of landscape, natural history and wildlife photography frequently (though not exclusively) demonstrate a conservationist ethic. In years past, such work was often intended to spark public interest in preserving wilderness and animal habitat from development. Many prominent wildlife photographers, including Art Wolfe, Franz Lanting, and Tom Mangelsen, explicitly address these concerns in their work.

These books are not like that. To the contrary, they represent a kind of elegy for a world (ecosystem?) of genuinely wild animals that will be gone forever within my childrens' lifetime.

Like many folks of (ahem) a certain age, I grew up with the comforting notion that the extermination of wildlife was a sin of an earlier, less enlightened era. I believed that national parks and wildlife refuges had "solved" the problem and that wild animals would always have a place in the world.

If only this were true. Even in North America, large mammals ("charismatic megafauna") are under intense pressure due to fragmented habitat and climate change. In Africa, the situation is far more dire. Elephant populations have fallen from an estimated 5 or ten million in 1900 to approximately 400,000 in 2000. In unprotected areas, African wildlife is being speedily hunted to extinction. Even the large national parks in East Africa are deteriorating rapidly. From over-browsing by hemmed-in herds of elephants to widespread poaching to the diversion of water resources for livestock, the future of Africa's large mammals looks bleak.

Brandt
Nick Brandt has spent much of the last decade photographing the great mammals of Africa, from elephants to Cape buffalo to cheetahs. His highly stylized black-and-white images have an immediately recognizable look to them, one that's consistent across a large body of work. Brandt notes that he's aiming for artistic portraits of these vanishing animals, rather than the customary clinical wildlife shots, in an effort to capture something of their essence before they're gone.

Between magazine interviews and posts on a number of websites and blogs, one can glean something about his working methods. He photographs mostly with a Pentax 67 on black-and-white film, and favors much shorter focal lengths than the artillery customarily used for wildlife images. Some of his photographs look like they were shot on infrared film, and many make liberal use of a red filter for dramatically darkened skies. Very shallow depth of field features in many of his animal portraits; he has explicitly denied using a tilt-shift lens or Photoshop to get this effect, coyly claiming to use a '"low-tech" in-camera method. (There's been a lot of on-line speculation about shooting through a de-mounted lens with a slight tilt applied. I suspect Brandt is simply exploiting medium format's intrinsically shallow depth of field, with a touch of Photoshop artistic license thrown in, his protests notwithstanding.) He prints digitally with an inkjet on cotton rag paper.

On This Earth: Photographs from East Africa (here's the U.K. link), published in 2005, is still widely available, and it's probably the best general sample of Nick Brandt's work. It's ideally sized to hold in your hands, with a simple sans serif typeface and decent margins for the photographs. The images are all reproduced on the right hand leaf as varnished duotones on semi-matte paper, nicely conveying the warm chocolate tones and glowing highlights of Brandt's interpretations. The photographs themselves are simply beautiful, and some of them have rightly become icons, including the cover image shown above of a bull elephant on a stark plain casting a shower of dust over himself. A Foreword by Alice Sebold and an introduction by Jane Goodall precede the photographs.

A Shadow Falls, published in September 2009 (U.K. link), is a larger and more luxurious book from a different publisher. However, it employs similarly restrained typopgraphy, design, and layout. The photographic reproductions are quite close to those in the earlier book, though they look just a bit lighter to my eye. Brandt's striking and moody images are again very well served. The larger photographs are printed double-truck across the fold; but they survive the insult, as the spine opens readily to lay flat on your desk or table. It's a bit too big to hold in your hands. Forewords by photography critic Vickie Goldberg and philosopher Peter Singer precede the photographs, as does a heartfelt introduction by Brandt.

There are many striking books of wildlife photography available. Nick Brandt's stand out from the crowd with a sustained interpretive æsthetic and an elegiac tone that hits home.

Beard
Peter Beard is about as far away from Nick Brandt as you can get. A trust-fund bon-vivant with a colorful social history, Beard has spent long stretches in Africa since 1955. The End of the Game: The Last Word from Paradise (U.K. link) was first published around 1965, and has been repeatedly revised and reprinted since. It's a curious pastiche of colonial era tall tales, famous hunts, snapshots, old lithographs, hand-written notes and aerial photographs. The typeface is a consciously old-fashioned Monotype Caslon, in between the hand-written notes. If you can get through all the self-indulgent 1960s-style "self expression," however, there's something interesting here. Beard evidently started out in Africa as a youthful lark, but over time came to recognize a calamity in the making. Long before the current wildlife holocaust began to play out in earnest, he saw it coming, and tried to sound an alarm. The "game" in the title refers to Africa's rôle as a playground for wealthy Europeans and Americans, going on Safari to casually massacre elephants and lions for trophies. To his credit, Beard tried to get Western journalists interested. His disgust at a smugly misleading 60 Minutes story in 1980 crackles off the page. The last section is a horrifying collection of aerial photographs of hundreds of elephant skeletons and carcasses. On some pages the images of dead elephants are laid out in a grid, precisely like Bernd and Hilla Becher's "typologies." The photographic reproductions are mediocre at best, and the original images more documentary than artistic. But it's still a fascinating book.

Geoff

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Original contents copyright 2010 by Michael C. Johnston and/or the bylined author. All Rights Reserved.

Comments

[Avram]

Excellent post, thanks for writing about this guy. In a general sense he's doing street photography/portraiture as in documenting life as it happens, except his habitat is the wildlife rather than streets and his subjects are big mammals!

[Christian]

I am a huge fan of Brandt's work. I've seen people criticize his methods, but I've always favored result over method, and his work is always elegant, rich, and thoughtful. Thanks for this very fine writeup, and for offering me a new name to look up (Beard).

[Oxford Photography]

Freelensing by Brandt seems the most likely option if no digital trickery is applied but imaging trying to get that right when you're that close the lion.

[Robert Roaldi]

What are we going to photograph when it's all gone, slag heaps?

[Jonas Yip]

Regarding Nick Brandt's rumored unmount-the-lens technique: when this was being discussed a few years ago I actually whipped out the Pentax 67 to try it. Turns out it works pretty well, because the really shallow mounts of the P67 lenses relative to the wide opening let you move the lens quite a bit without pulling the lens out too far (thus letting in light from the edges and losing infinity). Or something like that. Anyway, there's an example here:

http://www.jonasyip.com/pixel/index.php?showimage=48

Of course, after trying it once I can't say I've used the technique again... I've got T/S lenses for that.

j

[Vivec]

Wow, the Brandt photos look amazing and I can't wait to order Brandt's book.
There is something unreal about the lion photo though with the manes blurred but the face in sharp focus -- how has he achieved this effect?

[hugh crawford]

"colorful social history" , kind of like calling the ocean damp. You might want to check out this.

More Peter Beard , less 1965.

[Paul]

I love the lion image its a spectacle in pride and the beauty of power and self confidence. Although I´m not really a fan of his work it is true that his images are a breath of fresh air from all those long lens colour images we continually see. Anyhow any kind of photography book which reminds us how their time is running out thanks to our greed is positive idea.
It´s beyond me the abominable fascination which some "humans" have in hunting and collecting dead animals as trophies. I would certainly be interested to see how they felt if their weapons were turned on them and punished with the same inequity they enjoy practicing on wild animals.
Paul

[Kyle Batson]

I own A Shadow Falls and it's a superb book. The images are dramatic and iconic. More than wildlife photography, more like animal portraits.

[David L.]

With the prevalence of the digital "I can do it too" attitude held by the tyros, a dedicated photographer can't develop a technique, voice, or style without it immediately being deconstructed and emulated by a large number of people. Case and point: Jill Greenberg lighting. How the arrangement of a few lights could be analyzed on blogs and forums to a point that exceeds the scrutinization of the Zapruder film is beyond me.

I recall the "mystery" surrounding the Atelier-Fresson process from my younger days, but I don't recall anyone over the past 100 years starting flame wars over their theories...

[Matt]

"The "game" in the title refers to is Africa's rôle as a playground for wealthy Europeans and Americans, going on Safari to casually massacre elephants and lions for trophies."

Evidently the game is still on. Perhaps someone should donate a copy of Beard's book to the jurors of this year's Taylor Wessing Photographic Portrait Prize:
http://www.npg.org.uk/about/press/photographic-portrait-prize-2010-shortlist.php

[MJFerron]

Mike I'm glad to see Nick Brandt receive mention here. I've been a fan for a while and his work is amazing. These are not just animal photos but instead a total capture of mood and a complete respect for the majestic creatures he photographs. No one does it better IMO.

[Mark Olwick]

FYI: Nick Brandt wasn't satisfied with the printing quality of his two books mentioned above, so he just released a third, called: On This Earth, A Shadow Falls. It's a much larger format than the other two books, PLUS he supervised the printing. The result is one of the most stunning photography books I've every owned. The print quality is outstanding and the photos luminous. It's only available through his galleries. Details here: http://www.photoeye.com/bookstore/citation.cfm?Catalog=ZE223

[Rob Young]

I was fortunate enough to see an exhibition of some of Brandt's prints here in Melbourne, Australia. I don't care how he takes or prints his images. They are simply stunning, some of the best I have ever seen. The images in the book, while they are good, just do not have the impact of wall-sized prints. His work has inspired me to take more risks (though not by photographing big cats) in my work.

[Henk Peter]

Who cares how an artist makes his art (except for copycats)? It's the result that counts. To see the huge prints in Young gallery in Brussels in 2006 was a great experience.

Oh Mike, it's Frans Lanting with an 's'.

Henk

[Ed Buziak]

I quickly read and missed "Animal" in the heading and immediately thought of the late Sam Haskins and his lesser-known black-and-white tome "African Images" published by Bodley Head in 1967. Haskins' graphic skills also reminded me of Saul Bass... but without digressing further, aren't Haskins' works worth an article?

[Henk Peter]

Brandt's work is even more impressive when you see the real prints.
For me it's not important how Art has been created.

And Mike, it's Frans Lanting with an 's'. ;-)

[Laurence J. Segil]

Brandt has a new book out, only available through his galleries, sort of a greatest hits compilation from the first two books but with even more beautifully rendered and enlarged 300 line quadtone reproductions of the photos chosen, called aptly enough "On This Earth, a Shadow Falls". It is a simply stunning work, I find it of even greater emotional and aesthetic impact than its predecessors.
Larry

[Tom]

Geoff:

Thanks for your interesting and thoughtful review of Nick Brandt’s books. As much as I enjoy photography books, I purchase few new, On this Earth is one of those. Simply remarkable images, seemingly from the studio rather than the wild.

Jonas:

I really enjoyed your Paris photos; I see a certain kinship with Brandt’s.

[David in Sydney]

I couldn't agree more with David L (2.38pm post).
We pause in wonder at a photo for a few minutes and then think - I need to replicate that.
No you don't. You need to find your own voice. Your own vision.

[Jeff Damron]

I remember seeing Brandt's A Shadow Falls book at Barnes and Noble. I had seen pictures from his earlier book in Lenswork magazine, and normally I find that I like, often even prefer, smaller pictures such as in that publication. However, with Brandt's pictures, bigger is better. I received a copy of A Shadow Falls as a gift last Christmas and have to agree that it is quite amazing