Bryant Austin: Photographing Whales
Bryant Austin is an artist working to affect change through the creation of life-size photographs of whales. His work has been met with critical acclaim, and has been received enthusiastically during exhibits worldwide, including shows in Norway and Japan, countries that continue to hunt whales. These full body composite photographs only become possible when a whale chooses to initiate close inspections of him; at times only an arm’s reach away.
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ABOUT Bryant Austin
“Bryant Austin is a photographer with a big goal: to save whales by photographing them. But it’s not just photographing them – it is all in how he displays his work. A fine-art photographer specialising in producing life-size images (as large as 15 feet high by 90 feet long) of whales.
In the course of his work he will find a pod of whales, and then stay at the surface of the water, waiting for one of the whales to approach him. When they do, he starts photographing them, swimming less than six feet away from them.
After taking hundreds of high resolution images of a whale – all on the whale’s terms – he pieces them together into one complete, life-size whole.
He’s the first artist to show photos of whales at life-size, and the impact is profound. By showing these massive images in whaling countries like Norway, he hopes to change perceptions about the animals and – with luck – slow or even stop whaling.”
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