Today is World Hippo Day! As the second largest land animal on earth they are a great subject to juxtapose with smaller animals, especially the birds that swing by the pools and rivers where hippos congregate by day. They almost always live in communities of a dozen or more fellow hippos so capturing a group of them at once and then picking out some unique individuals to focus on can provide a variety of photographic opportunities.
Fun fact – Hippos secrete their own natural sunscreen! They release two chemicals that when combined, help block their skin from the harmful rays of the relentless African sun. These chemicals can turn pink or red when combined, earning them the term “blood sweat”. Yummy!
2022 was a great year for bird photography! Bookended by two photo productive trips to Brazil, I photographed storks in Morocco, mergansers in Alaska, ostriches in Namibia, oxpeckers in Botswana, and dippers in Canada.
Of course, I’ve shot more than just birds over the past year. Make sure you check back here often for more new photos from my travels. Better yet, join me on a workshop and we will make some memories together.
Enjoy the photos, and most importantly – have a Happy New Year!
Happy Holidays from Art Wolfe Headquarters in currently snowy Seattle! Here’s wishing everyone a safe and healthy winter with family and friends. As we move ahead to 2023, it’s important to also look back and reflect on the year that was.
For myself, that means reviewing a whole lot of trips and photos as I prepare the end of the year collection that I’ll eventually share with friends, including here on the blog with all of you! I’m still working on this, along side wrapping up final selections for Wild Lives, my epic opus on international wildlife coming in fall of 2023.
For the time being, here is a selection of my most recent images from Q4 of this year. Enjoy the photos, enjoy the season – and have a very happy New Year!
The Pantanal is one of my favorite places on the planet. It offers an amazing display of wildlife, landscapes, and cowboy culture. Recently I had a successful trip there, creating photos for my wildlife opus coming out in Fall 2023.
Have a look at the photos, then sign up to join me for my next trip to this incredible location full of so much to shoot! I’m headed back here at the end of June – sign up today to reserve your spot!
Art and design nerds rejoice! It’s the most magical time of the year – when Pantone announces their color of the year. For 2023, it’s Viva Magenta – a nearly wine-red take on the traditional magenta. As usual I’ve put together a gallery inspired by the color. Enjoy!
Pantone’s Color of the Year, Viva Magenta 18-1750, vibrates with vim and vigor. It is a shade rooted in nature descending from the red family and expressive of a new signal of strength. Viva Magenta is brave and fearless, and a pulsating color whose exuberance promotes a joyous and optimistic celebration, writing a new narrative.
This year’s Color of the Year is powerful and empowering. It is a new animated red that revels in pure joy, encouraging experimentation and self-expression without restraint, an electrifying, and a boundaryless shade that is manifesting as a stand-out statement. PANTONE 18-1750 Viva Magenta welcomes anyone and everyone with the same verve for life and rebellious spirit. It is a color that is audacious, full of wit and inclusive of all.
Warm up your winter with December’s Print of the month! A solitary gemsbok crossing the sandy dunes of Namibia. What I love about this image is that on one hand, you have a simple image and a single subject – but looking deeper there are so many design elements coming together to compose the image. The pattern of hoof prints against the textured sands, the highlighted dust reaching forward – even the shadows on the landscape themselves form interesting shapes. I’m glad that we decided to rent a helicopter for this trip!
I’m happy to announce that Travels to the Edge Season 2 is now available for streaming on my Vimeo On-Demand channel – just in time, as DVDs are getting harder and harder to find. Check out fan-favorite episodes on Mongolia, Iceland, Australia and much more! To celebrate upcoming 2023 international workshops, I’m offering up two full episodes to watch completely free! Just sign up for my email list – don’t worry, I hate spam also!
Art Wolfe’s Travels to the Edge Season 2 Episode 1 – Japan: Hokkaido & Honshu
The Image many of us have of Japan is congested and kinetic. But Japan has a wild side. In winter, beyond its crowded cities, the country delivers quiet, unexpected natural beauty. In the second season opener, Art Wolfe ventures north to the remote region of Hokkaido to view iconic red-crested cranes; south to the mountains to film the mischievous macaque snow monkey; and journeys on to the sacred temples of Mt. Fuji and Koyosan on a photographic pilgrimage.
Art Wolfe’s Travels to the Edge Season 2 Episode 10 – The Kingdom of Bhutan
Known as the “Land of the Thunder Dragon”, Bhutan has survived in isolation for more than a thousand years. As this enlightened Buddhist kingdom greets the 21st century, its greatest challenge is to preserve its soul. In episode ten, Art Wolfe finds a photographer’s nirvana of mountainside monasteries, sacred festivals and chanting monks in an environmentally and spiritually progressive nation.
It’s an odd thing, but I’ve had some good wildlife sightings when just standing still and, uh, relieving myself. Mostly owls peering down at me, but just last month I was in the Great Bear Rainforest attempting to photography the Spirit Bear and just when I took a break, one ambled by.
I first photographed these white-phase black bears way back in 1990, long before this region of British Columbia’s coast was designated as global treasure. Now, working on my magnum opus wildlife book, I headed back to this rich temperate rainforest in hopes of seeing this ghostly bear again. We had only four days and the waiting was long. To pass the time I taught a quick class in how to take abstracts; after all, there is always something to photograph, especially when the main objective is proving elusive. We were visited by spawned out salmon, Steller’s jays, American dippers, and a very curious, very black, black bear. Spirit or Kermode bears are merely a color phase of the American black bear. They just happen to carry two alleles of a gene that turns them a creamy white, but they are not albinos.
So when the spirit bear appeared for the first time, I zipped up and grabbed my camera. That session lasted a total of fifteen minutes. My fellow travelers implored me hourly to pee again, but that charm wore thin as did my stream. The next day she regaled us with another 15 minute appearance. Half an hour in four days and we all felt very lucky. That is the nature of wildlife photography.
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Print of the month is back just in time for the upcoming holiday season! It seems like a good time to spread a message of family and affection, so I’ve chosen a classic film shot from the early 1990’s of an emperor penguin chick and adoring parents. It takes both dedicated parents to ensure the chick is able to survive and thrive in the harsh Antarctic climes. Around the months of May and June, a female penguin will lay a single egg which is then passed on to the male to protect and incubate for the next 65-75 days. The female then heads back out to sea to recoup and feed for the next several weeks.
A collection of four penguin prints are on sale in the online store – purchase today and I’ll get my signing pad ready! If you’ve never purchased a fine art print before, our process is fairly simple. Each print is reviewed by our image editor to ensure quality before being printed on high-quality acid-free paper. The print is then allowed to off-gas before being signed and carefully wrapped and placed in a shipping tube to be sent your way. From here you can take your new fine art print to any local framer to be displayed to your liking!
Of course, we can also suggest framers and mounting services to meet your specific needs. If you have any specific questions give us a call or contact us and we will answer your questions!
The Mala Mala Reserve in South Africa was the last stop on September’s southern African sojourn. As promised, we were able to photograph some big cats doing their big cat things. One memorable pair was a singleton cheetah and its mother. Having no siblings, he relentlessly harried his mother and had epic solo zoomies. Learning how to successfully hunt and navigate its environment is of primary importance to young cats and this guy was doing his best under tough circumstances.
This is the last batch of photos from Africa for the time being – stay tuned for photos from our fall workshops! We’ve been kicking around the PNW and this weekend we are headed down to Sedona – and then it’s on to Oaxaca, Mexico for Day of the Dead!
