NICK BRANDT: Across The Ravaged Land

 Across the Ravaged Land (Abrams, 2013)

Nick Brandt's final book in his trilogy documenting 

the disappearing natural world and animals of East Africa. 

• Click Images To View Enlarged Portfolio •

Lion Trophy, Chyulu Hills, 2012

Photograph © 2012 Nick Brandt 

 Calcified Fish Eagle, Lake Natron 2012

Photograph © 2012 Nick Brandt

 

Lion & Wildebeest, Amboseli 2012

Photograph © 2012 Nick Brandt

Elephant Skull, Amboseli 2010

Photograph © 2011 Nick Brandt 

Check out photo-eye's Blog

Now in his third book, Across the Ravaged Land, Brandt has taken his stately images to the next level, exposing a darker vision. These extraordinary photographs, shot between 2010 and 2012, are haunting. Through the series of dried and calcified animals out on a weathered and ravaged land, elephants watching protectively over an elephant skull, or lion and buffalo heads mounted on posts as trophies overlooking the Chyulu Hills of Kenya, Brandt brings us full circle back to a solemn close to his trilogy of books documenting the disappearing natural world and animals of East Africa." – Elizabeth Avedon (photo-eye)

ACROSS THE RAVAGED LAND 

available at photo-eye

Elephants Walking Through Grass, Amboseli 2008

Leading Matriarch Killed By Poachers, 2009 
 Photograph ©2011 Nick Brandt 

Ranger with Tusks of Killed Elephants, Amboseli 2011
Photograph © 2011 Nick Brandt

Check Out Nick Brandt's

BIG LIFE FOUNDATION

biglife.org

VOTE: Maasai Wildlife Conservation

Ed Norton helps the Maasai Wilderness Conservation Trust
Watch Video

Photo courtesy of Campi ya Kanzi/ Maasai Wilderness Conservation Trust

VOTE to help this non-profit win a $50,000 grant

Ed Norton helps the Maasai Wilderness Conservation Trust preserve the people, plants, and animals coexisting on thousands of acres of wild African plains.

As U.S. director of the Maasai Wilderness Conservation Trust, Ed Norton’s helping the organization protect more than 280,000 acres of African plains, home to more than 1,000 of the world’s most unique plants and animals including lions, black rhinos and giraffes. The MWCT also helps provide healthcare, employment, and education to the local Maasai community that has shared the land for centuries

VOTE for Helping People and Wildlife Thrive in Kenya

Maasai Wilderness Conservation Trust

NICK BRANDT: "On This Earth - A Shadow Falls" Published by Big Life Editions

Elephant With Exploding Dust, Amboseli, 2004
Copyright (c) Nick Brandt /All Rights Reserved

Elephants Walking Through Grass, Amboseli, 2008
Big Life Foundation update: Lead elephant killed by poachers, 2009
Copyright (c) Nick Brandt /All Rights Reserved

On This Earth - A Shadow Falls
Photographs by Nick Brandt
Big Life Editions, 2010

Lion Before Storm II- Sitting Profile, Maasai Mara, 2006
Copyright (c) Nick Brandt /All Rights Reserved

Photographer Nick Brandt founded the Big Life Foundation in September 2010, a non-profit organization dedicated to the conservation of Africa’s wildlife and ecosystems. On This Earth, A Shadow Falls, with introductions by Jane Goodall, Alice Sebold, Vicki Goldberg, Peter Singer and Nick Brandt, was recently published by Big Life Editions, 2010.

"On This Earth, A Shadow Falls combines the best photographs from Nick Brandt's previous books. It features 36 images from On This Earth and 54 from A Shadow Falls and is the only publication where images from both books will appear in one volume, on a larger scale than the previous editions.

300-line quadtone reproductions by Meridian Printing in Rhode Island, and printed under Brandt's supervision, the tonal quality of On This Earth, A Shadow Falls is exceptional. This high quality technique and attention to detail has allowed the book to succeed where the previous volumes have not. For the first time in book form, the offset reproductions closely match the rich, velvety tonality and detail of the original prints." – photo-eye Books

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"Over the past seven years, Brandt has photographed most of the elephants that live in Amboseli National Park in Kenya. As a result, he has been fortunate to know these elephants and their habits intimately. Sadly, he reports the following:

July 3 2010, 7am : Amboseli Lake Bed, Amboseli National Park, Kenya.

A herd of 50 elephants are crossing the lake bed from outside the park near the Tanzanian border, making their daily journey into the swamp. Normally, these are the most relaxed of herds, quietly moving right past our vehicle without a care in the world. The terrible drought is over, food is plentiful, and the elephants are healthy.

But this morning, as soon as we get within half a mile of them, they start running in panic. So panicked that a baby gets knocked over in the rush. They're still running from us a full mile away to make it to the safety of the swamp. We've never seen anything like it in the seven years I've been photographing in Amboseli. Later, we discover that the night before, gunshots were heard from the direction the elephants came, near the Tanzanian border. Over the next two weeks, the herd never really relaxes. On subsequent days that week, the appearance of a second car - something that would normally never bother them - sends them into newly-induced panic, suggesting not one but two vehicles were hunting them.

Meanwhile, two weeks earlier, the carcass of a beautiful bull called Buster (as named by Cynthia Moss' Elephant Research Project) has been found outside the park with his tusks sawn off and taken. When I was last in Amboseli two months before that, Buster had been one of three bulls I saw with infected spear wounds in their trunks. Just in the last week of August, yet another three big bull elephants have been killed. One died from what seems to be a poisoned spike trap that poachers are increasingly using. And Winston, photographed below in July, was shot by poachers at the end of August just over the border in Tanzania. Wounded, he made it back over to Kenya, but then died and also had his tusks sawn off with a power saw by the poachers. At the present rate of deaths, there will soon be no mature bulls left in Amboseli"...read more from Nick Brandt's Big Life Foundation

Read more: Nick Brandt: Crusade of the Species, La Lettre de la Photographie, Dec 1, 2010

MAASAI MARATHON: NYC Eco-Warriors

Kenyan's (click for bio's) Samson Parashina, Martin Sunte, and Parashi Ntanin in NYC to run the Marathon

Samson Parashina, Edward Norton, Parashi Ntanin, Andrew Wolff, Martin Sunte, Luca Belpietro, Founder of Maasai Wilderness Conservation Trust

Parashi Ntanin with Dung Beetle

Kenyan Running Shoes

Huge Strangler Fig Tree, Sacred to the Maasai, in the Chyulu Forest

Maasai are natural runners, it is a part of their culture and tradition as warriors, so it seemed very organic to have some of these new generation ‘eco-warriors’ come brave the NY streets for their community–Edward Norton

NOVEMBER 1, 2009, actor Edward Norton and three Maasai Warriors from Kenya, will lead a team of 30 runners in the New York City Marathon to raise awareness and funds for the Maasai Wilderness Conservation Trust
MAASAI MARATHON

MARVI LACAR: Maasai Women Project

Kahlo House, Mexico © Marvi Lacar / All rights reserved

Hudson Bay, Ivujivik, Canada, 2008 © Marvi Lacar / All rights reserved

Takaya, Escaped From FGM. The Tasaru Ntomomok Safehouse for Girls, Kenya. Photograph © Marvi Lacar / All rights reserved

Mary Silio. The Tasaru Ntomomok Safehouse for Girls, Kenya

Photograph © Marvi Lacar / All rights reserved

MARVI LACAR came to the U.S. at age 15 from the Philippines. After receiving a bachelor's degree in Michigan from a liberal arts college, Lacar worked for several non-profit organizations before pursuing her master's degree in Journalism at the University of Texas in Austin. She completed a visual journalism fellowship at the Poynter Institute and interned at the Philadelphia Inquirer before moving to NYC in 2004.

Lacar was the 2008 winner of the Levallois - Epson Photography Award for her Journey Through Avignon. For her work documenting the progress of Maasai girls, women and men who are fighting against Female Genital Mutilation she won the 2008 Jurors Choice, Project Competition from the Santa Fe Center for Photography. She has been a nominee for the Joop Swart Masterclass and recognized by Communication Arts, PDN, and American Photography. Her clients include The New York Times, Time, Newsweek, Paris Match and Stern Magazines among many others.
Project: Healing the Deepest Scars: Rescue and Rehabilitation of Maasai Girls Escaping Circumcision and Early Marriage

Lacar lives in NYC with her husband, photojournalist Benjamin Lowy.
Website: http://www.marvi.net
PhotoBetty Post