Huw Lewis-Jones – Why We Photograph Animals

Review by Gerhard Clausing •

The documentation of animal life all around us has long been a favorite area of photography. This very important volume illuminates animal photography of all sorts from a vast number of angles, featuring a number of photographers who concentrate on documenting animal life, as well as essays dealing with animal issues from a variety of perspectives. Not only do we get to understand various methodologies, but also many purposes, and we are able to familiarize ourselves with all kinds of applications of animal photographs.

This photobook presents very interesting sections of explanations and background data that are interspersed with the images. First and foremost are the Profiles sections, which feature 28 different animals photographers. Mixed in are some 20 sections labeled Insights, Histories, and Fragments, which present various rationales, past and current viewpoints, as well as some historical backgrounds about photographing animals.

The images accompanying background information are presented as grouped overviews for the most part, as can be seen in the historical picture collage shown below. The contemporary photographers’ work is mostly printed as double-page spreads. Both unusual images of well-known animals as well as very interesting close-ups and macro shots of more elusive, lesser-known creatures are beautifully presented. I am showing a small range of representative photographs below; there are several hundred more in the book.

Special emphasis has been placed on the attitudes that human have shown over time in regard to their fellow non-human earth inhabitants, keeping them in zoos, presenting them as fantasy dioramas in museums (image 6 below), and encroaching on their territories and using them as food as well. We are privy to unusual views of deep sea creatures as well as other animals too minuscule to see with the naked eye or too peripheral to receive much of our attention.

There is much more to see and contemplate in this comprehensive volume; this brief discussion provides just a tiny glimpse. Those who also care for creatures other than ourselves are encouraged to study this volume in detail and marvel at the diversity of those who are sharing our world with us, and what some implications for the future might be. The wisdom of animal photography experts is interspersed in the form of quotes throughout the book; along with the several hundred visuals, this book is a well-curated exploration that gives us much to contemplate about our fellow inhabitants of this earth.

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Gerhard Clausing, Editor of the PhotoBook Journal, is an author and artist from Southern California.

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Huw Lewis-Jones – Why We Photograph Animals

Editor: Huw Lewis-Jones

Texts: Huw Lewis-Jones, and many others

Language: English

Hardbound, with illustrated cover; 336 pages, paginated, with some 300 illustrations; 7.75 x 9.75 inches (19.8 x 24.8 cm); printed and bound in China by Toppan Leefung Printing Limited; ISBN 978-0-500-02272-6

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Articles and photographs published in the PhotoBook Journal may not be reproduced without the permission of the PhotoBook Journal staff and the photographer(s). All images, texts, and designs are under copyright by the authors and publishers.