Nick Brandt

Nick Brandt (1964) was born and raised in London, where he originally studied painting and film at Saint Martin’s School of Art. While directing Michael Jackson’s epic Earth Song video in Tanzania in 1995, Nick fell in love with animals and the East African land.

A few years later he began his first photographic series, On This Earth (2000- 2005), which comprises a trilogy together with the later series, A Shadow Falls (2009) and Across the Ravaged Land (2013). On This Earth was published in a book form in 2005 with introductions by the conservationist and primatologist Jane Goodall, author Alice Sebold, and photography critic Vicki Goldberg. Later series, Inherit the Dust (2016) and This Empty World (2019), were all also photographed in East Africa. In 2010, Brandt co-founded Big Life Foundation, a non-profit in Kenya / Tanzania that employs more than 350 local rangers protecting 1.6 million acres of the Amboseli / Kilimanjaro ecosystem. His photographs focus on the impact of environmental destruction and climate breakdown, for both some of the most vulnerable people and for the animal and natural world.

Since 2020, he has been working on The Day May Break, an ongoing global series that portrays people and animals impacted by climate change and environmental destruction. Chapter One (2021) was photographed in Kenya and Zimbabwe, Chapter Two (2022) in Bolivia. SINK / RISE, Chapter Three (2023) was taken in Fiji, and The Echo of Our Voices, Chapter Four (2024) in Jordan.

Brandt has had solo gallery and museum shows around the world, including New York, London, Berlin, Stockholm, Shanghai, Oslo, Paris and Los Angeles. His photographs form part of numerous public and private collections.