Best photo albums of 2021
Incredible visual stories, from stormy oceans and volcanoes to flying birds and whales.
Hi there. Welcome back to the book club of the ‘ScienceBorg Librarian’.
My name is Vasile Decu, I’m a science journalist, book blogger, and ‘professional bookworm’. And here is my list of the best photo albums published last year. Yes, it’s a very subjective ‘shelf’ (aren’t they all?), and also focused on nature and science. But I do think that I can safely say they are among the best books of 2021.
From the microscopic world of seeds to the tectonic spectacle of fiery volcanoes, and from the flight of whales to that of the birds in the oceans above, these books delight us, inform us, educate us, and inspire us through joy, and awe, and pain, by distilling entire worlds and feelings in a single frame. And they all show how fascinating and fragile the world us really is.
If you’ll enjoy this list and find a great book, please buy me a coffee and/or a chapter of a new and bloody expensive hardcover, via Buy Me a Coffee or Donorbox.
For me, this was the book of the year, regardless of the format. It’s a magnificent album, that takes your breath away, with a gallery of hundreds of aviary portraits that deserve to delight crowds from the Met to the Uffizi Gallery! From over ten thousand species, Tim Flach and his team of ornithologists chose a series of extremely interesting characters, all of them highly photogenic — from regal condors and the colour explosions of toucans and parrots to black ravens and flashy ducks.
Bringing them into the studio wasn’t an editorial trick. By these artistic portraits, with such high resolution and attention to detail, photographer Tim Flasch managed to create closeness, intimacy, and ‘dialogue’. Yes, we can’t stop ourselves to immediately anthropomorphise them (the ‘king condor’, the ‘Machiavellian raven’, the ‘childish, playful ducks’, or the ‘enigmatic owls’). And then, right after, you’re also shocked by their ‘primordial’ strangeness. In both cases, the same objective is met — they have your full attention. And the stares these birds offer back may help us see them better, appreciate and protect them!
“What photography can do uniquely as a medium is to fragment a single moment in time, thereby extending our experience of that moment, which the persistent flow of movement and therefore our vision often denies us. It invites us to examine and contemplate the bending of a feather caught in flight, the minute details of the vanes and barbules of plumage, the frozen moments of torpedo-like diving penguins, the painterly reflections of flamingos wading.” Tim Flach
“American Flamingos (Phoenicopterus ruber) have an innovative day-care system, which frees the rest of the adults to spend their entire day foraging, allowing the birds to gather more food and feed more mouths without increasing the risk of predation.” © Tim Flach
There are more statues of lions in our cities than lions in the wild… You can count 10.000 in London alone, while the total population dropped below 20.000. With this sad trend, will the world be left just with stone carvings, after watching the extinction of this magnificent species? It’s a powerful question, brought by Scottish photographer George Logan, one of the most talented activists fighting to end the cruel ‘sport’ of lion trophy hunting.
Lion: Pride Before The Fall is a powerful visual story of the life of these regal felines, in all its beauty, wild brutality, and fragility.
A most powerful aesthetic alarm call for the peril of losing the emblematic species of Africa, from elephants to cheetahs. But Joachim Schmeisser’s album is in no way just a sad collection of portraits, but a strong argument for action. These are not scenes of surrender, but of complex, dynamic life. His images make explosions of colour out of just a fews shades, with movement and energy. „Fleeing the Storm” is my favourite.
The visual metaphors created by Nick Brandt hit you hard and stay with you. They stir your emotions with a seemingly infinite palette of menacing greys. Unfortunately, his tableaus are less scary than the reality he’s trying to wake us up to. And, incredibly, the images are not collages, but real scenes, with animals rescued in sanctuaries, from a nature under the assault of accelerated destruction, from individual actions to the global impact of climate change. And nature also includes us. Maybe we’ll get through this suffocating fog of environmental damage, or maybe the morning light will come down on desolate, empty lands. It all depends on us. We are both the aggressors, and the victims of our actions. Poachers, and rescuers. Polluters, and refugees. Maybe it’s not too late. We still have hope today.
Asian small-clawed otters (Aonyx cinereus) are highly sociable, like us, and learn hunting skills and various solutions by watching other members of the clan. They’re also intensely loveable, aren’t they? They feature in Photo Ark Wonders, the latest album in Joel Sartore’s famous series for National Geographic, an editorial effort of many years to photograph as many species on an artistic ark, to inspire us to protect our natural diversity.
Superb and unexpected seascapes, at the thin line between two oceans, one of water and one of air. A permeable border — especially if you read about the huge quantity of emissions absorbed by the seas. But it’s also an ‘opaque’ frontier to most of us, separating different and strange worlds. An „Audubon of the seas”, NatGeo photographer David Doubilet has a long career as an explorer of the global ocean.
A visual exploration of the Mediterranean waters — abused, ignored, but still mysterious and full of natural treasures — from one of the best underwater photographers in the world. It’s a wounded sea, but with many secret oases, as Ballesta writes. The exotic and the wild are always just a step away.
A collection of ‘wow’ images, almost surreal, with marine ecosystems around the world, from the coasts of Africa to the Americas, from Galápagos to Antarctica. These are grand spectacles, featuring sharks and turtles and whales. Trained as a marine biologist, Thomas Peschak argues that he can best help through his images, to show us the beauty of the oceans and to teach us to coexist with all these wonderful creatures.
A journey into the world of these fragile leviathans, the larges mammals in the world, with complex societies and behaviours — which we’re still trying to decipher. But the background is scary, as their populations are dwindling because of pollution, commercial traffic, and hunts. It’s frustrating how long it took us to see, recognise and understand these various intelligent creatures and cultures. While searching for alien life (I’m a passionate amateur astronomer), we must not forget to see and protect what we already have around us.
Hidden Beauty of Seeds & Fruits: The Botanical Photography of Levon Biss
May geology fans forgive me, but seeds seem to me to be the most beautiful jewels in the world — artistic and engineering wonders. The solutions found by evolution in the natural world, chiselled down to molecular levels, offer us a bounty of study that may last for lifetimes. But you can also enjoy them at ‘just’ an aesthetic level. Leafing through this collection from the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh, by photographer Levon Biss, I vowed to keep my eyes open on any walk, from now on, in case I miss these ‘diamonds’ and ‘rubies’ scattered around me.
Max Milligan — Birth of a Volcano
I can’t wait to publish the longform interview I did with photographer Max Milligan, whom I’ve met and befriended years ago, in the hills of Transylvania.
“I have photographed five volcanoes in my life
and never seen anything like this before. It is Mordor.”
Birth of a Volcano documents the impressive eruption of the Icelandic volcano Geldingadalir, from last year. It’s a fascinating geological story, with an eery, dangerous atmosphere, foreign to humans — but also incredibly beautiful. “The amazing thing about this volcano is I walked up there… well, 17 times. And every single time was different”, he told me. ‘This is why I and all the other volcanologists and photographers say this is the best volcano ever, because it’s just so beautiful and it’s ever changing, always changing, never, ever the same.”
Pete McBride’s album is one of my favourite books in my library. In these chaotic times, of painful noise on social media and bad news and world events, I had a very strong reaction to many of his stills. As a ‘text’ journalist, doing miles of transcribed interviews and articles, I often say (but don’t stone me) that photography is sometimes limiting instrument. But, in the right hands, the camera can distil to perfection an emotion, a thought, a desire… Seeing Silence takes you from Everest to the Atacama desert. And yes, you can see silence, you can feel the comfort of empty places, and you’re transported to a very positive and stimulating aloneness.
I have a debilitating phobia of highs — one I think that’s very healthy and useful for my physical integrity :) But it also makes me unable to look away, in awe of all those who can go to the edge, to the top, to the drop. This book by Jimmy Chin, director of „Free Solo” (among many other accomplishments) churned my stomach and my soul — and also blessed me with endorphins and exploration dreams even in the safety of my library.
“As I have pursued my explorations I’ve had these pinnacle moments, moments that were difficult or extraordinary. I put these little markers in my life’s timeline, that these were moments that would land in the book.” Jimmy Chin (Instagram link)
This was the book of the year in my native country of Romania, not just because of the beauty of its hundreds of landscapes and animal portraits, but also because of its mission to mobilise the readers to protect the wild wonders that we still have in this corner of Europe.
„A book is meant to be read and reread. To have marks and wrinkles. To be passed among our families and friends”, told me Romanian photographer Dan Dinu. I can proudly report I did just those things to all these albums in my list.
Gheorghe Popa — Cuejdel: A Tale from the Carpathian Wilderness
Nature is the most gifted artist, indeed. This album by Romanian photographer Gheorghe Popa proves it in spades. Dedicated to the small lake of Cuejdel, it enchants you with incredible colours, textures, and scenes of pure fantasy — in a premium format. It’s a story gathered over years, in different seasons and atmospheres, that makes you grab your backpack (and your camera) and go into the forest. There were lots of great books last year dedicated to the physics and biology of light, colour and sight (like Blue or Full Spectrum). This album is a perfect visual companion.
If you enjoyed this list and maybe found a great book, please buy me a coffee and/or a chapter of a new and bloody expensive hardcover, via Buy Me a Coffee or Donorbox.
