In A Shadow Falls, Nick Brandt continues his ambitious and ongoing photographic project to memorialize the vanishing natural grandeur of East Africa. Brandt’s wide-screen panoramas of animals and landscapes capture an epic vision of Africa not seen before. His iconic portraits of its majestic animals are filled with an empathy usually reserved for human subjects.
From the opening images in A Shadow Falls, of a verdant world filled with multitudes of animals, to the closing images of small bands of creatures moving across a parched, dusty earth, Brandt portrays a mythic Africa struggling against tragic forces. In years to come, we will look back at these powerful photographs and wonder why humanity did not do more to preserve this rare corner of earthly paradise.
Critical response to his first book, On This Earth, heralded Brandt’s photographic achievement. According to Time Magazine, ‘African wildlife has no never looked so regal and mysterious as in Brandt’s grave photographs.’ American Photo said ‘Combining splendid natural backdrops with a portraitist’s approach to animals, Brandt’s images show not only the reckless beauty of Africa’s vanishing wilds but also the humanity if its creatures. The photos have an uncanny intimacy.’ And Black and White Magazine called his photos ‘heartbreakingly beautiful’.
A Shadow Falls reproduces fifty-eight recent images in stunning, oversized tritone plates. Philosopher Peter Singer, author of the ground breaking Animal Liberation, explains why Brandt’s photographs speak to an increasing human moral conscience about our treatment of animals. The distinguished photography critic Vicki Goldberg places Brandt’s work in the history of the medium.
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