REVIEWS
Praise for THE ECHO OF OUR VOICES
“Brandt strikes a flawless balance between harsh and soft elements, in this case the delicate reunion between the roughness of the desert, and the refugees’ stories and the warmth of family. The refugees come alive through his photos; the physical connection to emanate affection, and in the eyes of the children are crystal-clear dreams.
In a world that so frequently dehumanizes Arabs, especially Arab woman who fall victim to stereotypical depictions of oppressed voiceless beings, Brandt has given these women a (literal) platform to reclaim their power.”
— Alaa Elassar, CNN
“For over a decade, photographer Nick Brandt has distinguished himself by crafting powerful visual narratives that explore the complex relationship between humanity and the natural world. His latest project, The Echo of Our Voices…turns his empathetic lens towards the often-unseen plight of displaced Syrian refugees in Jordan.
Against the starkly beautiful yet unforgiving backdrop of the Wadi Rum desert, Brandt’s meticulously composed black and white photographs elevate these individuals, presenting them as “human islands” grappling with the compounded injustices of war and environmental devastation.
Through striking sculptural compositions featuring families posed on powerfully symbolic pedestals, Brandt moves beyond mere documentation or portraiture, offering a profound commentary on resilience, the enduring human spirit, and the interconnectedness of global crises.
His work not only captures moments of profound intimacy and strength but also shines a light on the disproportionate impact that climate change makes on the world’s most vulnerable populations.”
— Cary Benbow, FStop Magazine
“A seminal photographic series from visionary photographer Nick Brandt documents with skill and sensitivity a human race on the verge of environmental catastrophe.”
What makes The Day May Break photographic series so unforgettable is Brandt’s refusal to rely on spectacle. Instead, he finds quiet power in the dignity of his human and animal subjects, many of whom have experienced climate-related displacement or trauma yet manage to retain a quiet resilience.
Brandt’s use of monochrome and soft light lends the work a timeless, almost mythic quality. But this is no fantasy—it’s a mirror. Climate change, Brandt insists, is not some distant specter but a crisis unfolding now, disproportionately affecting those least responsible for it.
The Day May Break is not just art; it’s a clarion call that the world needs to wake up and confront what is happening to humanity and the planet. Through powerful imagery and accompanying narratives, Brandt urges us to confront a truth we often ignore: the fate of humans, animals, and the planet is inseparably linked.
Brandt’s work resists easy optimism, but it isn’t devoid of hope. There’s tenderness in every frame, a recognition of our shared fragility and the possibility of compassion. In a world fractured by crisis, The Day May Break offers a rare kind of clarity—the kind that comes not from distance, but from standing close enough to see the humanity in every face, human or otherwise.”
— Lee Sharrock, Forbes Magazine
“Why do I find myself unable to turn away from these images, or to stop gazing at them?…The images suggest meticulous attention to detail, from consideration of tone and movement of light, to shapes of faces and the direction of the wind; in the end, we find ourselves before a piece as intricate and cohesive as lace.
Brandt’s work on the subjects’ gestures, their faces and foreheads, the light in their eyes and the selection of groupings—with the backdrop of mountains and desert, between peak and cave, sand and sky—results in photographs that brim with life, inviting questions while offering no answers. They deftly dismantle our ready-made assumptions and give rise to tomes of questions, floating gently in extended silence.
In these photographs, the arrangements of refugees tell tales of sadness, of lives suspended in temporary time. The images speak of absence, yet also of love. Despite shifting meanings of pain, disquiet, and the unknown, Brandt reveals that love is the thread of their survival.
Each photograph is a painting, and each painting is a small detail in a larger scene of gripping pain the photographs attempt to address. When I stand before them, time itself stands still.
Each photograph contains a rebellious cry. The images tell us, with solemn dignity: Do not avert your eyes.
These images are not only photographs, they draw from theatre, film, and poetry; they are the daughter of reality. Deeply truthful, and deeply imaginative. Imaginative for the intensity of pain and that silent cry, truthful as they are rooted in the refugees’ reality.”
— Extracts from the foreword by Samar Yazbek, Author of Where the Wind Calls Home
“Nick Brandt is a photographer whose camera aims to convey the rumblings of an uncertain future. Traveling across continents and getting to know different communities, Brandt’s objective as an artist is to strikingly reflect the reality of climate change by working with those who have been most affected by its rapid escalation…an aritst who not only aims to capture the magnificence of nature and its inhabitants, but one who is able to facilitate a story of the Earth as well. His work is poetic, focused on bridging the different iterations of an increasingly communal narrative through metaphor and exhibition.
The most remarkable aspects to his work are the stakes and scales of these projects, the tenderness behind each frame, and the way it resonates into the viewer’s understanding of the story his images tell.”
— Carlota Gamboa, WhiteHot Magazine of Contemporary Art
Praise for SINK / RISE
"Faced with a seemingly impossible task, Nick Brandt has created a profoundly original body of work, one that represents an entirely new approach to climate-conscious photography….
Although they are several meters below the surface, the subjects of Brandt’s mesmerizing photographs do not float or swim. Incredibly, they sit on sofas, stand on chairs, use seesaws, and pose in ways they might on land. The effect is otherworldly, as though the familiar laws of physics have stalled in this strange, liminal zone between land and sea.
Sit with these photographs and the others in the series, and the subjects’ expressions will change like water. Stoicism becomes resignation. Frustration becomes resolve. In their pensive faces, we can read tenderness, grief, and perseverance. Intimate and spare as these portraits are, the effect is expansive.
Despite the surreal, semi-theatrical settings in which these portraits occur, Brandt’s images are direct, uncluttered, and free from distractions. This combination of ambitious fantasy and exquisite restraint is a signature of Brandt’s work rarely seen elsewhere.
The photographs comprising SINK / RISE are remarkable in their ability to be simultaneously approachable and enigmatic, to be political and inclusive. They invite us to linger, to look harder, and to go deeper. With every return, there is something new to discover— within the images or within us.
With the portraits in SINK / RISE, Brandt gives us a vital means of considering what we all stand to lose."
"This book is profoundly beautiful. This book is calm. It is also a warning about a possible, perhaps probable, horrifying tragedy.
SINK | RISE is the third installment of Brandt’s environmental/ecological portrait series, which I deeply admire.
And while it should be no surprise by now that I am a fan of this series, I find myself surprised at how far this new book (series) goes beyond the previous two (chapters of The Day May Break). This is not just a new twist on an established theme. This is a completely new take. The result is deep-core good.
The images are outstanding. Actually, they are more. The images are astounding.
All three books of The Day May Break series are moving. And I don't mean just emotionally deep. They are catalysts. They move you to action, even if that action is simply a vote. Brandt has found a way to give a visual articulation to something not present in front of a lens, a way to give a visual articulation to a need. Our planet is in peril. And so, we are in peril. What we stand to lose is wise and deep and beautiful. We need to do more."
Praise for The Day May Break
"Nick Brandt is an artist and witness who seizes bleak and desperate fates, and by some mystery and alchemy, transmutes these into a gesture of poignant and painful beauty.
It has been an eon, and then some, since I experienced contemporary photographs of people of African roots created by a person of Euro-American origin, that were this tender, human and gorgeous."
"The environmental threat to life on this planet - both human and animal - is realized by Nick Brandt in The Day May Break to devastating effect in these powerful yet tender portraits. Art of this calibre is in a unique position to challenge and engage audiences in environmental conversation.”
"Emotionally charged….beautiful and touching portraits...inspirational for much-needed environmental changes."
"A seminal photographic series from visionary photographer Nick Brandt documents with skill and sensitivity a human race on the verge of environmental catastrophe.
What makes the series so unforgettable is Brandt’s refusal to rely on spectacle. Instead, he finds quiet power in the dignity of his human and animal subjects, many of whom have experienced climate-related displacement or trauma yet manage to retain a quiet resilience.
Brandt’s use of monochrome and soft light lends the work a timeless, almost mythic quality. But this is no fantasy—it’s a mirror. Climate change, Brandt insists, is not some distant specter but a crisis unfolding now, disproportionately affecting those least responsible for it.
The Day May Break is not just art; it’s a clarion call that the world needs to wake up and confront what is happening to humanity and the planet. Through powerful imagery and accompanying narratives, Brandt urges us to confront a truth we often ignore: the fate of humans, animals, and the planet is inseparably linked.
Brandt’s work resists easy optimism, but it isn’t devoid of hope. There’s tenderness in every frame, a recognition of our shared fragility and the possibility of compassion. In a world fractured by crisis, The Day May Break offers a rare kind of clarity—the kind that comes not from distance, but from standing close enough to see the humanity in every face, human or otherwise.”
— Lee Sharrock, Forbes Magazine
"A landmark body of work by one of photography’s great environmental champions. Showing how deeply our fates are intertwined, Brandt portrays people and animals together, causing us to reflect on the real-life consequences of climate change. Channeling his outrage into quiet determination, the result is a portrait of us all, at a critical moment in the Anthropocene."
"These are cautionary tales of tenuous survival, and while the pictures themselves are fascinating because of how strange it is to think of the animals and people calmly sharing personal space, it should not be happening and it feels both magical and ominous, hopeful and unsettling.
At heart, the question this series poses is whether the day will break like sunrise, or like glass. For as gorgeous, rich and operatic as the images are, this is not an Edenic vision of coexistence, it’s an urgent plea for taking action."
"These images are purposeful, artistic, philosophic, political statements…. It’s not juxtaposition—one thing set against another. This is, instead, a sophisticated and nuanced, unified moment…
The Day May Break is both fine art and moral argument. Unexpected, both timeless and immediate, necessary."
One of the most influential photographers of our time, Brandt’s powerful black-and-white imagery articulately conveys the devastating impact of environmental destruction and climate change on our planet.
— Josh Bright, The Independent Photographer
"There is a terrible beauty in Nick Brandt’s work. The exquisite images through which he captures a world teetering on the abyss are imbued with a sense of foreboding.”
“A mature and thoughtful work that represents an artist at the peak of his creative powers."
PRAISE FOR THIS EMPTY WORLD
"The astonishing images in This Empty World by Nick Brandt deliver the emotional shock rarely felt, but urgently needed, to accelerate global conservation."
"This Empty World dazzles with its imposing scale, colorful detail, and technical ambition...an arresting body of work."
"Epic and cinematic."
"Once again, Nick Brandt has captured in art what our minds could not have imagined, and yet we knew all along. Brandt powerfully reminds us that the modern future that we are creating through unthinking development is a dark, dusty and empty one in which our spectacular wild animals have no future.
These images vividly remind us that a future without our wildlife, and the economic opportunities for local people that they bring, is a desperately poor one. It does not have to be this way. We just have to wake up and look at Brandt's images to see what we are doing."
"Highly crafted images on a panoramic scale...This Empty World is a masterpiece."
"This Empty World is a captivating account of wildlife colliding hard against an endless tide of human encroachment. Brandt's masterpiece images reflect the ambivalence of a world looking away from its own shadows. The images are monumental achievements."
"Stunning...Nick Brandt's This Empty World is a bold assault on human greed, capitalism, and consumer culture."
"This Empty World is a blazoning exploration of the vulnerability of animals and humans in an era of environmental degradation.
Brandt's vision communicates the urgency of environmental issues with undiluted conviction. The works' impact, immediate and direct, is informed by a painstakingly deliberate and nuanced process. Brandt's finished works...of the wild animals and the human-inhabited sets, create startling scenes of the two worlds in direct dialogue."
"This Empty World showcases stunning scenes of animals and humans trying to live side by side in a rapidly developing environment...A stunning cinematic quality..."
"Harrowing and deeply moving."
"Extraordinary Work...This Empty World is a truly smart way of raising awareness, for it forces us to rethink our expectations, our take on photography, and ultimately, the destruction of our planet."
"Splendid...hugely dramatic and emotional mise-en-scenes."
"Technical and emotional marvels."
PRAISE FOR INHERIT THE DUST
"Nick Brandt's ravishing portraits of African animals are like the premonitory memorials, taken to aid the cause of staving off extinction. In Inherit the Dust, his astonishing panoramas of those portraits — installed as life-size panels in industrial and urban wastelands that have trampled the animals' habitats — are a jolting combination of beauty, decay, and admonishment. The result is an eloquent and complex "J'accuse", for the people are as victimized by "development" as the animals are. The breadth, detail, and incongruity of Brandt's panoramas suggest a collision between Bruegel and an apocalypse in waiting."
"With Inherit the Dust the quiet dignity of the animals that Nick Brandt photographs is shockingly juxtaposed against the indignity and disarray of our own. These haunting photographs force us to think about what we are doing, and who is at stake. "
"Nick Brandt's Inherit the Dust is his visual cry of anguish about the looming apocalypse for animals and habitats in Africa...The resulting images are simultaneously beautiful and horrifying, because they illustrate the irreconcilable clash of past and present."
"Brandt's new collection is his most powerful and heart-wrenching to date."
"Jarring and powerful...the photos are as beautiful as they are melancholy."
— Wired
"Sublime photos...a beautiful bleakness."
— Mother Jones
"Brandt's epic panoramas serve as a heartbreaking epitaph to a paradise lost."
"The wasted lands in Inherit the Dust were once golden savannah, sprinkled with acacia trees, where elephants, big cats and rhinos roamed. These now dystopian landscapes — as Nick Brandt's unvarnished, harrowing but stunning work reveals — bring us face to face with a crisis, both social and environmental, demanding the renewal of humanity itself. "
— Kathryn Bigelow, Film Director, The Hurt Locker
"The images in Inherit the Dust are heart-wrenching and important. This tough new series is a call to action – if it's not too late – and pulls no punches in confronting us with the devastation of their habitat. "
"Nick Brandt's magnificent, remarkable and truly original new work, Inherit the Dust is a photographic essay in environmental ethics. He asks, in the most stark fashion: "What are we doing to this planet? What have we gained, and what have we — and the other animals with whom we share our planet — lost?"
"The wall-size prints of Inherit the Dust are impeccably beautiful and stunning, as well as profoundly disturbing. They convey the vast spaces and light of contemporary Africa with a cinematic immersion and incredible detail. When standing in front of his images, the viewer is transported into the scenes – sometimes with wonder and awe and joy, and other times with overwhelming sadness, despair, and disgust."
"Nick Brandt's latest work is both gorgeous and disturbing... Brandt has deftly turned his art into a call for action."
"An evocative portrait of change and loss."
— The Wall Street Journal
“The large-scale panoramic photographs are uniquely powerful. Simultaneously beautiful and shocking, they convey the dramatic scale of destruction in the region, the majestic animals strike a deeply sad sight, juxtaposed against the quarries, factories, and rubbish heaps that once were vast open plains.”
— Josh Bright, The Independent Photographer
PReviously selected reviews & Quotes
"Nick's exquisite photographs arouse deep emotions. They inspire a sense of awe at the beauty of creation and the sacredness of life. It's almost impossible to look through his work without sensing the personalities of the beings whom he has photographed."
"African wildlife has never looked so regal and mysterious as in Brandt's grave photographs. His elephants appear as weighty as the pyramids. His rhinos look more ancient than carbon. His apes know something we don't. Powerful reminders that Africa is a magnificent — and endangered — treasure house of animal life."
"Brandt's images of the animals of Eastern Africa take one's breath away. These powerful glimpses of another world are so intimate one might hear the rustle of brush as a cheetah makes herself known, or the breathing of a lion as he stands alert. One cannot help but connect with these animals. They each have a unique personality. But it is not mere intimacy that attracts. Brandt's pictures are beautifully composed, sensuous portraits. Heartbreakingly beautiful, these strong and vital creatures seem somehow fragile, ephemeral. We must ensure that it is not only in images that they are preserved."
"Nick Brandt's photography is beautiful and elegaic in a classic way, and also 'strange' in the best sense; those who know East Africa must grieve to think that our own species could be so greedy and unwise as to let such magnificent creatures disappear."
"The photographs of Nick Brandt are both beautiful and haunting. They come upon you in a flush of abundance that is almost impossible to recover from...You are about to enter a world of the imagination where all the animals are real, both fragile and full of grace."
"Combining splendid backdrops with a portraitist's approach to animals, the images show not only the reckless beauty of Africa's vanishing wilds but also the humanity of its creatures. The photos have an uncanny intimacy. Brandt brings a compositionally precise and painterly style to a genre dominated by action shots and documentary image-making."
"The haunting images seem less like a documentary than like spirit photos of mythical beasts. Living testimony to the ghostly beauty and the fragility of nature, these magnificent creatures will convince you (if indeed you had any doubts) that animals not only have minds and hearts but also spirits and souls."
"His approach is the antithesis of conventional wildlife photography and moves his work into the arena of fine art...shows you how animal pictures should be taken."
"Wildlife photography has become a holiday and adventure cliché: have telephoto lens, will snap view up rhino's nostril — so uninteresting, so blah. And then there's Nick Brandt. Brandt eschews the telephoto lens in favour of patience combined with a rare courage, determination and an artist's eye to photograph wildlife. The results are animals so accustomed to Brandt's presence and so untroubled by him that his pictures are breathtakingly beautiful and touching in their honesty and emotion...He clearly has an affinity with these glorious creatures that's heart-stopping."
"Nick Brandt's photographs are both epic and iconic. It's a vision of Africa that we have not seen before."
— Mary Ellen Mark, Photographer
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