Nick Brandt

Nick Brandt (born 1964) is a British photographer whose work focuses on the impact of environmental destruction and climate breakdown, for both some of the most vulnerable people and for the animal and natural world.

His early photographic series include the trilogy encompassing On This Earth, A Shadow Falls Across The Ravaged Land (2001-2012); Inherit the Dust (2016); This Empty World (2019), all photographed in East Africa.

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.

Photographic historian Philip Prodger summed up these first tow chapters thus:

“A landmark body of work by one of photography’s great environmental champions. Brandt portrays people and animals together, causing us to reflect on the real-life consequences of climate change. Channeling his outrage into quiet determination, the result is a portrait of us all, at a critical moment in the Anthropocene.”

SINK / RISE, Chapter Three of The Day May Break (2023), addressing future rising sea levels as as a result of climate change, was photographed underwater with only people in Fiji. The Echo of Our Voices, Chapter Four (2024) and features rural families, who fled the war in Syria, now living in Jordan, in a state of perpetual displacement due to climate change.

All the series are published in book form.

Brandt has had solo gallery and museum shows around the world, including New York, London, Berlin, Stockholm, Shanghai, Oslo, Paris and Los Angeles.