Beneath the Surface — Bryant Austin

*Beneath the Surface*
Edition of Twenty Prints and one Artist Proof
Dimensions: 32 X 80 inches.
Print 1 of 20
Cost: 16,500 USD

Beneath the Surface is the sister print to my most popular photograph entitled A Mother Listens. Both prints feature the same humpback whale resting vertically in the water. She held this position for twenty minutes while gently rotating her body around her vertical axis. She may have been listening for courting males nearby to determine if this would be a quiet place for her and her calf to rest.

Beneath the Surface was composed in 2006 in the Kingdom of Tonga. I spent a total of five months at sea during this time, working to create the world’s first life-size portrait photograph of a whale. While this mother whale rested vertically with her calf swimming around her waiting for an opportunity to nurse, I floated alone with them, waiting for the possibility of the mother to approach for a close inspection of me. Close inspections sometimes an arm’s reach away, are when life-size portraits can be made. The mother whale found a shallow reef and rested away from me with her calf. A week later another calf would be the subject of my first life-size portrait; entitled Humpback Whale Calf One.

*A Mother Listens* (sister print to *Beneath the Surface, featuring the same whale)*
Dimensions: 32 X 80 Inches
Edition of Twenty Prints and One Artist Proof
Sold Out

Bryant Austin is an American photographer known mostly for his life-size photographs of whales. His photographs have been exhibited in solo shows in the U.S. and abroad, including the Monterey Museum of Art (Monterey, California), Focus Gallery (Chatham, Massachusetts), Tamada Museum (Tokyo, Japan), and the USA Gallery at the Australian National Maritime Museum (Sydney, Australia). Group exhibitions include the Peabody-Essex Museum (Salem, Massachusetts) and the Datz Museum of Art (Seoul, Korea).

Bryant is a 2019 nominee for the SFMOMA SECA Award. His work has been featured in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, National Public Radio, and Reuters, among others.

Bryant was born in Sacramento, CA, in 1969 and currently resides in Carmel, CA. His first photography book, Beautiful Whale, was released in 2013 by Abrams Books. His second book entitled sun, water, being was released by the Datz Museum of Art Press in January, 2021.