Fusing
art and activism, Nick Brandt focuses on the animals that roam Tanzania
and Kenya, capturing their majesty in monumental, black-and-white and
sepia-toned photographs—as well as fighting for their preservation,
along with the conservationist Richard Bonham, through their Big Life
Foundation. He fell in love with East Africa in 1995, while directing
Michael Jackson’s “Earth Song” music video. In 2000, he returned to
photograph the elephants, lions, and other animals populating the region
and realized that they were being ravaged. As he describes, “I wanted
to create a last testament for these extraordinary animals in these
extraordinary places. What I didn’t imagine is that the destruction of
those animals would escalate to the degree that it did.” Brandt eschews
telephoto lenses and shoots with a film-based camera, capturing their
"spirit” in his photographs, which implicitly ask: what happens when
they disappear?
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