Nick Brandt is undoubtedly the king of wildlife portraits. The cinematic setup, his excellent sense for light and shadow, the fact that he shoots only on black and white 6×7 film and the resulting tonal range, all these make his work truly unique. He easily makes the top of the list of my favorite photographers.
Nick has founded the Big Life foundation that seeks to conserve and sustain the wildlife and the wild lands of the Amboseli-Tsavo ecosystem of East Africa. In one of his books he writes:
“I’m not interested in creating work that is simply documentary or filled with action and drama, which has been the norm in the photography of animals in the wild. What I am interested in is showing the animals simply in the state of Being. In the state of Being before they are no longer are. Before, in the wild at least, they cease to exist… The photos are my elegy to these beautiful creatures, to this wrenchingly beautiful world that is steadily, tragically vanishing before our eyes.”
To see his work, you can visit nickbrandt.com. There is also a very good post about him on The Reel Foto blog, from where I borrowed these two pictures.