“The buzz word is swarm intelligence, which has acquired an unforeseen reality in the era of Facebook and Twitter. The behavior of a collective without a center has become a social phenomenon, which is not only of interest to natural scientists, but also particularly to politicians and economists.” (Peter Pfrunder in his contribution to the book) Swarm is a breathtaking photographic series exploring the flock movements of migrating birds. The photographs offer a unique view of the beauty but also the complexity and diversity of shape variations. A swarm sitting on the ground mirrors the surface of the earth like a skin, but as soon as it lifts up it becomes a fluid three-dimensional system in constant flux. This aerial ballet reveals a rhythm of upward explosion and downward, cascading movement. At times the forms seem to explode, blooming like flowers or expanding outward like fireworks. At other times they appear more stable, slowly drifting like a negative image of stellar constellations. Swarm looks up into the sky and follows flight through the dynamic landscape of streams of air.
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- Swarm
- Lukas Felzmann
- Lars Müller Publishers
- 2012
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- Novogen
- Dániel Szalai
- The Eriskay Connection
- 2021
Novogen is a project focusing on the eponymous breed of chickens that was developed in order to use its eggs in the production of pharmaceutical products such as medicines and vaccines. Through the investigation of the industrialised farming of the Novogen White Light chicken, Dániel Szalai (HU) intends to articulate questions and dilemmas regarding technology and man’s relation to nature.
The core of the book is formed by an extensive series of portraits of individual chickens besides photographs documenting the environment of the production facilities and the process of vaccine production. The images are supplemented by a reflective text by philosopher Fahim Amir, a selection of extracts from the management guide of the Novogen White Light and the marketing materials of the company that produces them.
Besides posing questions about our understanding of the natural, Szalai believes that the way these chickens are ‘conceptualised’ can be a metaphor for human positions in the job market, or in the political domain.
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- HANON
- Yoshinori Mizutani
- IMA Photobooks
- 2016
In Mizutani's images, flocks of great cormorants perched on the overhead power lines, which are a ubiquitous element of the Tokyo sky, become silhouettes that resemble musical notes on a score. In fact, the book of the series was titled HANON in reference to the French piano instruction book.
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- Finding Trust
- Annie Marie Musselman
- Kehrer Verlag
- 2013
American photographer Annie Marie Musselman has a series of photographs that are sure to tug at your heart – especially if you're an animal lover. Titled Finding Trust, the photographs show injured wild animals being cared for at a wildlife rehabilitation center. Musselman started shooting the project seven years ago at a small sanctuary 75 miles away from Seattle, called the Sarvey Wildlife Rehabilitation Center. In the process of documenting the animals' lives, she was personally involved with helping the patients as well and in turn they helped heal her from the grief of her mother and father's deaths. Annie Marie Musselman lives in Seattle, Washington. Finding Trust has been featured in several magazines and exhibitions. Her images have been published in American Photography 25, Outside, National Geographic Magazine, Harper Collins, Elle, Travel + Leisure, The New York Times and Newsweek among others. She is represented by Bianco Artist Management. Currently she is working on a project with the wolves of Wolf Haven International, with a comission by the Getty Images Grant for Good. "Coming to Sarvey felt like coming home. The work that I produced there documents the delicate union that exists between humans and animals. These pictures were made with the intention to show the world an upclose view into the faces and souls of these wild animals. To look into their eyes as if looking into our own." Annie Marie Musselman
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- Empty Nests
- Atsuko Murano Abalos
- LibroArte
- 2021
“Empty Nests” is a photo series by Japanese artist Atsuko Murano Abalos of stork nests that she discovered during a short stay in the Alsace region in France in fall of 2019. All the nests she found were empty; the birds had already raised their young and embarked on the long journey to Africa. But seeing the many empty nests atop trees, chimneys and other high places, meticulously constructed from flimsy materials to satisfy the needs of their family, stirred something within Murano Abalos.
At first sight, her photographs seem to pay homage to the birds’ craftsmanship, dexterity and ingenuity, or to find humor (and admiration) in the bravery and brazenness of the nests’ locations. But with each turn of the page, new themes emerge and manifest themselves, and soon the photographs reveal a deeper fascination rooted in the emptiness of the nests – as self-constructed homes, as symbols of fertility and family values, as signifiers of hundreds of years of cohabitation.
“When a bird builds a next, it doesn’t waste resources to show someone its taste, preferences, financial strength, social standing, nor to complicate the nest’s function. The bird does not think, nor does it make comments about things like making the nest for nation, for god, or for the environment and society; therefore preventing distractions for potentially making big mistakes. It only knows and acknowledges the needs of its own body, and the need for caring for its children.”
― from Hiroshi Nakamura’s afterword “Capturing the Unseen” (included in Japanese and in English translation)→more -
- Dromaius-鳥
- Hisako Sakurai
- Self published
- 2014
"Regarding these birds, evoking images of primitive genes, one is carried back in time to an ancient world. In the gentle light in the forest, the sight of these grotesque-eyed lanky birds standing motionless causes time to stand still, creating the illusion that they could even lead me to the era of the dinosaurs. It is a vista that calls to mind the primordial earth.
With such sentiments, I gaze on this scene as I timidly approach the birds, and find a most unexpected comical aspect to them. As they run, they direct their gaze upward at the other birds sounding their lovely calls as they fly freely in the sky. Flightless, though possessing wings, they are like the underachievers of the race of birds, oddly pathetic and stirring sympathy. Bathed in abundant pools of light, as they rest their large eyes with a translucent white third eyelid drawn across the orb, their weirdness is accentuated. But conversely to such appearances, their nature is in fact docile. They are creatures incongruent in their outer and inner aspects.
I’ve felt that the ballet movements I was taught as a youngster must have been created in the image of, and in yearning for birds. The aspect of those scaly feet, slowly setting one foot forward and kicking back the ground beneath, lightly, precisely all the way to the tips of the toes. The neck is slender and supple, legs thin and long, the upright form with gay wings of the tutu has a seemliness with nothing extraneous in its movement. As I watched these birds, I felt that surely their movements must be the origin of the dance.
In the process of evolution, these creatures, who chose to run upon the land and survive thus, outstretched their necks and looked up to the sky as though longing for flight. In the same way, the dancers resist gravity, yearning to dance high into the skies above. Each of these, unfolding on their respective stages in their wordless, distinct forms, beckon me to another world."
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- Die Anthropomorpha: Tiere im Krieg
- Malin Gewinner
- Matthes & Seitz Berlin
- 2017
Fallschirmspringende Hunde, ferngesteuerte Haie, Raketen, die von Tauben gelenkt werden, Katzen mit implantierten Abhörgeräten : In diesem Buch geht es um Tiere, die der Mensch zu Kriegsteilnehmern gemacht hat. Die militärische Nutzung von Tieren spielt seit Anbeginn der Kriegsgeschichte eine entscheidende Rolle. Tiere sind ständige Wegbegleiter, jedoch keineswegs ebenbürtige Partner der Menschen. 32 erstaunliche, skurrile und bizarre Tiersoldaten dieses Buches zeigen, dass der Mensch keine Grenzen kennt, wenn es darum geht, sich gegenüber dem Feind einen Vorteil zu verschaffen. Woher kommt die Selbstsicherheit, mit der der Mensch sich die Fähigkeiten der Tiere zunutze macht ? Welche Konsequenzen hat das für Mensch und Tier, und wie und warum gerät der Vormachtsglaube der Menschen gerade zu Kriegszeiten ins Wanken?
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- Des oiseaux
- Paolo Pellegrin
- Editions Xavier Barral
- 2021
This new series by Paolo Pellegrin celebrates the eleventh title of the collection Des oiseaux (On birds). Magnum photographer best known for his works testifying to political, economic or even ecological upheavals, his curious mind leads him to focus on subjects that are sometimes more contemplative, where nature holds a major place. Thus, during a stay in Japan in 2019, Paolo Pellegrin, who left to witness the blooming of the cherry trees, is more struck by the majesty and the aerial ballet of a colony of black kites flying over the temple of Shimogamo, Shinto shrine of the 7th century, in the heart of a primary forest.
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- Des oiseaux
- Rinko Kawauchi
- Editions Xavier Barral
- 2021
This new series by Rinko Kawauchi celebrates the tenth title in the collection Des oiseaux. The Japanese photographer focused on swallows in Spring during birthing season in her neighborhood in the city of Chiba and, in particular, on the tiny nests that the birds build in window openings or in the underside of roofs, in order to protect their broods, which are fed by their parents for several weeks. Fascinated by this spectacle, with her characteristic poetry and sense of detail, Rinko Kawauchi brings out the marvelous in our daily lives and the ephemeral beauty of suspended moments. The swallows, thanks to their sharp wings, perch everywhere with ease and elegance, bathed in an opalescent light.
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- Des oiseaux
- Leila Jeffreys
- Editions Xavier Barral
- 2020
Leila Jeffreys takes us with this book into a journey through tropical forests and jungles all over the world towards astonishing bird species that she has been taking studio portraits of since 2008: “I’ve long noticed how many birds have specific expressions, just like us”, she explains. Jeffreys’ images, which rely on a profound connection with her sitters cultivated over many years, are an exercise in both artistry and empathy. Cultivating the art of waiting, Jeffreys develops a gallery of whimsical and hyper-realist portraits where all the birds come attired in their most beautiful finery with sumptuous plumage colors. One by one, they let their character shine through: graceful, mischievous, shy, proud, timid, poseur, all of which seem to want to chat to the viewer. Her practice underlines how humans anthropomorphize animals and what we really do share.
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- Des oiseaux
- Albarrán Cabrera
- Editions Xavier Barral
- 2020
The poetic universe of Spanish photographers duo Albarrán Cabrera is presented here through a dreamscape journey in the land of birds. Between reality and illusion, their photographs questions our relationship to the tangible world and vibrate gently through a wide palette and different photographic techniques: platinum and palladium prints, cyanotypes, gelatin prints, and pigmented printing…
Each photograph is like a story that seems to have been paused. The birds seem to be straight out of fantastical fairy tales; they merge into space, are revealed on reflective surfaces, and slip into the undergrowth whereas sometimes their physical presence is underlined by a tight framing. The birds are revealed through abstracting shapes sometimes simple dots and shadows. Albarrán Cabrera leave the interpretation of their images to the memory of the viewer and let our imagination fly.
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- Des oiseaux
- Graciela Iturbide
- Editions Xavier Barral
- 2019
A major figure of Latin-American photography, Graciela Iturbide’s approach combines the documentary and the lyrical. Off-center compositions, graphic effects, and heavy shadows create a poetic universe where a feeling of strangeness is combined with one of harsh reality. The powerful equilibrium of her compositions produces skies filled with birds, comical, unexpected situations where chickens are pictured sitting wisely on market stalls, while elsewhere chirping flocks appear to invade the scene in agile, flowing movements. For Iturbide, living birds represent freedom. But death is never far away in her work, nor indeed is a certain sense of the surreal.
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- Des oiseaux
- Michael Kenna
- Editions Xavier Barral
- 2019
A master of landscape photography, Michael Kenna’s images reveal a world that is almost evanescent. One where diaphanous light enshrouds nature in mystery, with islands, rivers, and even summits standing out in the distance. “In all of my work there is a certain prevailing theme which has something to do with memory, with time, with change.” Birds soar overhead, tracing aerial figures in fleecy skies, come to rest on a branch, or fly gracefully over hazy expanses of water. Suspended flight, halted moments in time—one that is frozen, immutable.
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- Des oiseaux
- Byung-Hun Min
- Editions Xavier Barral
- 2020
Making visible the silence, the simplicity of nature and a sense of passing time. The photographs of Korean Byung-Hun Min, made between 1998 and 2020 throughout he world, take on the evanescence of a pencil sketch. With their subtle contrasts, their play of silky tones, they seem to show a fleeting instant between clarity and dissolution.
Min’s birds live in an ethereal space. They seem enveloped in a white veil, in a silvery light. The virtual monochromy of the image, the uniformity of the tones, oscillating between white and gray, the absence of perspectives and contrasts, the simplicity of the construction and the minimalism of the forms reproduce a reality that has become fantastical. The photographer’s painstaking work printing each negative allows him to reproduce not only what he saw, but also what he perceived. Min’s birds are an invitation to contemplation.
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- Des oiseaux
- Bernard Plossu
- Editions Xavier Barral
- 2018
Half traveler and half migratory photographer, as he likes to introduce himself, Bernard Plossu strides along the world since many years. He captures through his lens furtive moments, where birds are flying in huge swarms or caught alone, standing proudly in the middle of a puddle, or gliding high up in the sky, among the peaks. The photographer looks at birds with tenderness and curiosity, a gaze which underlines fantasy and a “surrealistic” approach, as explains the critic Francesco Zanot about his images.
The flight fascinates the photographer, obsessed with the euphoric speed of swallows as well as the hypnotic inertness of large raptors drifting through the wind at high altitude. Plossu’s photographs allow us to see fragments of the world, a world in which birds have reinvested our environment.
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