Nick Brant

Nick Brant is a photographer from the UK now living in California who studied film and painting, and eventually gave up directing to go into photography full time. He takes black and white photographs of wildlife in East Africa. The reason he goes there is because, he says, "There is perhaps something profoundly iconic, mythical, mythilogical even, about the animals of East Africa, as opposed to say, the Arctic or South America". What's catching about his pictures is the up close personal feeling you get to being up close to these animals in the elegant black and white. Then you read about him and discover he does not use telephoto lenses because he wants to include as much sky and land as possible. So he really is getting close to these wild animals, sometimes within a few feet. And he really does do a good job of making the place look somewhat magical, like someplace unheard of. He has published his photographs in a book called "On This Earth".

"They're my elegy to a world that is steadily, tragically vanishing."

http://www.younggalleryphoto.com/photography/brandt/brandt.html