above, Kingdom of Tonga, 2006
Dimensions: 24 X 31 inches
Edition of 20
$2500
A dear friend of mine sent me this story the other day…I was so blown away, I just had to share it with you…
Photographer Bryant Austin has dedicated his life to photographing whales…this may sound extraordinary in and of itself but what sets Austin’s work apart is the scale of his pieces…he has created 25 true-scale pictures, including two full portraits, each composed from dozens of photographs of different sections of the whale’s body…the largest is a 6 by 30 foot portrait of a dwarf Minke whale from the Great Barrier Reef in Australia…you may be wondering what inspired this idea…
“On a warm summer afternoon in 2005, Bryant Austin was snorkeling in the blue waters of the South Pacific by the islands of Tonga, looking through his camera at a humpback whale and her calf swimming less than 50 yards away. As he waited for the right moment, the playful calf swam right up to him, so close that he had to lower his camera. That’s when he felt a gentle tap on his shoulder. Turning around, Mr. Austin found himself looking straight into the eye of the mother whale, her body bigger than a school bus. The tap had come from her pectoral fin, weighing more than a ton. To Mr. Austin, her gesture was an unmistakable warning that he had gotten too close to the calf. And yet, the mother whale had extended her fin with such precision and grace — to touch the photographer without hurting him — that Mr. Austin was in awe of her “delicate restraint.” Looking into the whale’s eye, lit by sunlight through the water, Austin felt he was getting a glimpse of calmness and intelligence, of the animal’s consciousness. The moment changed Mr. Austin’s life. It struck him that something was missing from four decades of whale photography: the beauty of true scale. Mr. Austin concluded that the only way to capture the magnificence of whales would be to create life-size pictures of them. “I wanted to recreate the feeling I had when I looked into the eye of the mother whale,” he said.” ~ NY Times
Bryant Austin’s breathtaking work is now on display at the Electric Works gallery in San Francisco…the show runs from April 1st – May 7th…I can only imagine how powerful this would be in person…a truly remarkable achievement
below, Humpback Whale Calf I, 2006
Dimensions: 43 X 75 inches
Edition of 20
below, Sperm Whale Calf Composite One
West Indies, 2009
Dimensions Available:
64 X 240″ (1:1 Scale)
33 X 120″ (1:2 scale)
Edition of 5
$45,000.00
below, Dwarf Minke Whale Composite Portrait, 2009
Dimensions: 48 X 73 inches
Edition of 20
below, Humpback Whale Mother and Calf II, 2005
Dimensions: 24 X 42 inches
Edition of 20
below, Humpback Whale Calf II , 2006
Dimensions: 24 X 42 inches
Edition of 20
below, Dwarf Minke Whale Composite Portrait 1257
with Killer Whale Bite Scars, 2009
Dimensions: 64 X 139 inches
Edition of 5
below, Sperm Whale 142
below, Life-Size Minke Whale Portrait 1294: 48 x 64 inches
below, Bryant Austin in the waters of the South Pacific photographing a baby Humpback Whale, named Little Friday.
Bryant Austin is the founder of a nonprofit organization called Marine Mammal Conservation through the Arts…he hopes that his life-size portraits of these magnificent creatures will build support to end whaling…
photos and resources ~ MMCTA, Electric Works gallery and NY Times
danielleboudrot
a thoughtful eye 