Monochrome Monday (Tusk)

Elephant images by Nick Brandt

The most impressive set of monochrome images I have ogled for a long long while. I'm talking about Nick Brandt's images of lions and elephants and giraffes and all manner of African critters. Shot on 6x7 film stock and blown up up huge eg 2 x 4 meters, including quite a few shot on infra red roll film. Just wonderful. Evocative. Out of my budget range - even the signed book below ($200).

You can have a massive platinum print of the elephant drinking above for a meagre $110K - a bargain considering that it's the last of a worldwide limited edition of 15 and the printing quality is flawless. And let's not forget the cultural cache of having something in common with the Jolie-Pitt's of the planet. Oh and there's no chance of you or me shooting our own beast as that elephant, like so many, has been killed by poachers.

Brandt isn't your typical western shooter, who travels to exotic places, bags the shots, sells them to the corporations and then repeats. He has put his own $$$$ into setting up local African rangers and support systems for endagered big easy targets. Check out more at his Big Life Africa Foundation.