| Title | : | Nick Brandt: Inherit the Dust |
| Author | : | |
| Rating | : | |
| ISBN | : | 0692520546 |
| ISBN-10 | : | 9780692520543 |
| Format Type | : | Hardcover |
| Number of Pages | : | 124 |
| Publication | : | Published February 21, 2016 |
Three years after the completion of his trilogy, On This Earth, A Shadow Falls Across the Ravaged Land, Nick Brandt returned to East Africa to photograph the escalating changes to the continent's natural world and its animals. In each location, Brandt erected a life-size panel of one of his portrait photographs--showing groups of elephants, rhinos, giraffes, lions, cheetahs and zebras--placing the displaced animals on sites of explosive urban development, new factories, wastelands and quarries. The contemporary figures within the photographs seem oblivious to the presence of the panels and the animals represented in them, who are now no more than ghosts in the landscape. Inherit the Dust includes this new body of panoramic photographs along with original portraits of the animals used in the panoramas, 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.
Nick Brandt: Inherit the Dust Reviews
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The photographs of Nick Brandt deserve more than a simple cursory flip through, as if you're just looking at a People magazine while you wait for a doctor's appointment. With his first three collections - On This Earth, A Shadow Falls, Across The Ravaged Land - these are photos that the reader/viewer needs to spend some time with, to be sure to not be in a hurry. In a way this is more true of this volume. Brandt takes outtakes from the first three books, blows them up to roughly life size, and places (physically, not with photo shop!) these photos in places, now drastically changed by humans, where the animal species once resided. The result is photos of the "King of the Beast" gazing on a dump and elephants standing under an overpass and other unnatural juxtapositions like that - powerful images. While these photos are a wake up call of a different kind than the trilogy and may not be quite as powerful - since before we were focused simply on the power, beauty, poignancy of the animals themselves - as with all of Nick Brandt's work it is still stunning and well worth the investment.
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I have followed Brandt's work for quite some years now and dare say this may well be his most important work. (I still remember the hurricane in me when I stood in that gallery and felt the weight of each photograph; how the world seemed to cave in on me.)
Every time I flip through this book, I find myself tearing up. The photographs are incredibly powerful - poignant yet beautiful - and the essays are eloquently written and provide alarming facts that I know so well but somehow always manage to forget (perhaps because I don't like what I read?).
In short, however, I am left inspired. Brandt's passion; his appreciation for the wild, and his perseverance and determination for conservation is contagious. I hope, in time, I too will be able to play my part securing a better future for our children, so that no one will have to inherit the dust. -
So sad what we’re doing to our planet and the animals that share it with us.
