At present Bryant Austin is the only person in the world working to compose high resolution life-size photographs of whales. To work with whales in this way, he sold everything he owned and left his career at a marine mammal research lab. To continue his field work he released a small collection of eleven limited edition photographs featured below. They were released specifically to fund forty months of field work with over five endangered whale species.
Since his return from his last three month field season in 2006 he has dedicated himself full-time to promoting his work and mission so that it may one day continue. His field work continues to remain on hold until sufficient funding is secured. At present he is focusing on exhibitions in whaling nations featuring his portfolio below combined with his largest to-scale whale photographs measuring 8 X 22 feet.
Click on a photograph to view a larger image
Austin's modest Portfolio above represents two entire field seasons with the South Pacific Humpback Whales, where in collaboration with whale biologist Libby Eyre, they developed the methods and techniques required to produce his envisioned life-size photographs.
The methods and techniques for this work have never before been pursued in the four decade history of whale photography. The primary reason for this is that the standard wildlife photography business model could in no way support a project of this magnitude. For his work to be successful he must spend entire seasons annually with specific whale populations using the most advanced digital imaging technology available. The resulting imagery is then reporduced to life-size dimensions to share whithin whaling nations at no cost to the viewer.
His work is on whale time. The realities of our lives based on a monetary model is completely alien to his subjects. Austin does not bring the pressures of a commercial profit driven business model to these creatures. Instead he spends entire seasons with specific whale populations patiently observing and waiting for his subjects to initiate close, intimate inspections of him at distances from two to eight feet. These moments allow for a very special interaction to occur between species. Their eyes meet on the whale's terms, the artist remains motionless as his subject delicately moves around him with tremendous precision. It is when these rare events occur that the artist composes a series of photographs along his subject's body later to be made into a life-size photographic composite.
“To be eye to eye with an inquisitive whale is a rare and special moment. It is a moment that defies words and can only be communicated visually on their scale. The intimate physical closeness I seek is essential to my work. At a mere body's length away from the whale reveals the calm and evident consciousness emanating from their eye, my camera records the moment with the highest clarity, detail, and tonal range possible which is critical to producing photographs to life-size dimensions.”
—Bryant Austin
