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Beautiful Whale

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Endangered killer whale population faces a noisy new threat – Yahoo News snippet curated by www.Free-Mail.co.za as being relevant to ‘Whales’.
Southern Resident killer whales (SRKW) are considered to be the rarest orca population in the world. Logging and fish farms threaten their food supply and organic pollutants contaminate the waters of the only killer whales listed as endangered by the …

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  1. 14 of 15 people found the following review helpful
    5.0 out of 5 stars
    Gorgeous Book, April 19, 2013
    By 
    Daryl Carpenter (CT) –

    Verified Purchase(What’s this?)
    This review is from: Beautiful Whale (Hardcover)
    I’ve loved whales since I was 5, and having purchased numerous books of underwater photography, I was starting to ask myself “are there any NEW ways to photograph a whale?” As spectacular as they are, pictures of Humpbacks breaching or Sperm Whale pods are a dime a dozen these days. I wouldn’t have given this book a second glance if I hadn’t done some research on Mr. Austin’s work first.

    This book contains some of the most incredible pictures of whales I’ve ever seen. The imagery is startling in it’s detail, scale, and intimacy. For a long time, whales have been depicted as almost mystical creatures, rather than flesh and blood. These pictures are so much more natural and organic-looking ; we seen tiny sucker marks around a sperm whale calf’s jaw, hair follicles inside a humpback whale’s tubercules, the concerned eye of a mother whale keeping a close watch on this human interloper while her calf swims alongside, the fine skin texture of a Minke Whale – really, I could go on a while. The photos also give a great sense of the sheer size of these creatures, helped by the book’s huge 12″x15″ format and the numerous full-size close-ups of the whales’ eyes. I’ve never seen a Sperm Whale look this big and imposing before – or this gentle and inquisitive either.

    Bryant Austin’s goal was to create life-size, high-resolution composites of whales, of which three are included in this book as foldouts (scaled down, of course!). While he expresses frustration at his early attempts at creating life-size composites, the photos of a Humpback Whale mother and her calf in the first chapter are probably the most affecting. In comparison, the pictures of a Dwarf Minke Whale in the final chapter aren’t as interesting. While the four-page foldout composite is superbly done, the particular cetacean seems to lack the personality of the Sperm and Humpback Whales featured earlier.

    If you love whales, you will almost certainly love this book. My only real complaint is that only three species are featured, those being the Sperm, Humpback, and Dwarf Minke Whales. If Bryant Austin ever does a Beautiful Whale II, I’d love to see some shots of Grey and North Atlantic Right Whales. Faces that only a mother could love, but faces that need to be seen!

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  2. 10 of 10 people found the following review helpful
    5.0 out of 5 stars
    If you want to cry …, April 9, 2013
    By 
    D.R. Yonkin (New York, NY USA) –

    Verified Purchase(What’s this?)
    This review is from: Beautiful Whale (Hardcover)
    If you want to cry, this exquisite, astonishing, heart-rending work will do it. The actual physical book is a triumph in itself, somehow managing to convey the size and majesty of the fierce beauty of these beautiful beings. You will see the color blue in previously unimagined ways. The author’s own complex feelings, shared with total vulnerability, as well as his dedicated struggle to achieve this multi-leveled work of art, resonate throughout. His artistic and humanistic genius promise even greater achievements, and this writer urges those who can offer support to future projects, to find a way to do so.

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  3. 13 of 14 people found the following review helpful
    5.0 out of 5 stars
    Feast for the eye and spirit, April 4, 2013
    By 

    Verified Purchase(What’s this?)
    This review is from: Beautiful Whale (Hardcover)
    My pre-order copy just arrived and I dropped everything to read it. And wonder over it. And delight over both the incredible photography and the lyrical, empathetic narrative. I’ll admit that I was so transfixed by the images that I kept finding myself distracted from that narrative, so I’ll return to it shortly to give the commentary the attention which is its due.
    Those who are not already whale nuts may well find themselves converted. And those of us who are will nod our heads in understanding that this work certainly will contribute to that conversion.
    Beautifully conceived and executed!

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