The Living Wild by Art Wolfe, Wildlands Press, $55, ISBN
0967591805
PHOTOGRAPHER Art Wolfe takes pictures of the natural world that are as
cunning as they are beautiful. He directs our eyes towards things that in most
photographs would remain unnoticed. The frontispieces to his latest book,
The Living Wild, are photographs of parents with their young. A polar bear
cub and an Emperor penguin are at the focus of the pictures, but the images are
so cleverly composed that the parents鈥� stance reminds the viewer first of a
strong, fur-covered house and then of a solid windbreak. Parent is defined as
shelter.
Wolfe shares the technical details of his photographs with his readers as he
travels the world to record the creatures of the wilds. His journeys are ordered
by different zones: temperate and tropical or island and ocean. His purpose is
sober. He鈥檚 trying to take 鈥渁n honest look at how these animals are doing鈥�. Like
E. O. Wilson, he believes that humans will rise to the challenge of keeping the
wilder side of life alive. His photographs should not, he pleads, become the
visual obituaries, recording the dismal demise of, say, the last Bactrian camel
or Galapagos tortoise.
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Biologists worldwide line up to endorse his aims: George Schaller, Jane
Goodall and Richard Dawkins have all written essays for the book. You can see
why. The sight of wildlife at home in its proper context arouses not only wonder
and amazement but a protective instinct and a sense of responsibility. It鈥檚 a
huge book in every way.