This Week In Photography Books – Daniel Naudé

by Jonathan Blaustein

I was walking near my house the other day. Looking down at the wet dirt before me, I saw a curious pile of reddish goop. Bear poop, I wondered? Too early in the season. Coyote vomit? Possible. Or maybe it was just something the dogs threw up.

I live in a place of wild nature. The creatures are out there, and many emerge at night. It can lead the mind into curious diversions. Earlier this Winter, for example, a somewhat-paranoid neighbor reminded me that there were mountain lions about. “Be careful,” she warned me, “and keep your eyes out.” (My five-year-old son was with me. I was scared witless, but he thought it was cool.)

The next week, as I tugged his fluorescent-orange sled across the frozen field to grandma’s house, we saw an enormous set of tracks on the fluffy fresh snow. They were big enough to give us pause, so we stopped to contemplate. “Dad,” he said, “is that… a cougar track?” Stress chemicals dropped in my blood. Fear sweat began to form on my well-buffeted skin. “I’m not sure, buddy,” I replied, “I’m just not sure.”

Trust me, there’s a big difference between knowing something is out there, and seeing the evidence for yourself. Within a few minutes, we had convinced ourselves what we’d seen. Speculation gave way to certitude, and then the gossip spread. Before long, that same neighbor called us up, seeking confirmation. Were we sure?

In the end, it was nothing but a big dog’s paw print. Mountain lions have retractable claws, and the dogs don’t. Crisis averted. Our imaginations had sped off into the distance, like a white-tailed deer running from a pack of wild dogs.

Speaking of wild dogs, I got a look at a new book this week, “Animal Farm,” by Daniel Naudé, recently published by Prestel. Cool photographs, I must say, and the book is very well-produced. If it were me, though, I’d have skipped the Orwellian title and the didactic explanations in the opening artist’s essay. The pictures are good enough on their own.

The narrative focuses on one of the artist’s main projects, photographing feral dogs in the South African wilderness. Big, majestic creatures, these. Most look like a cross between a bull mastiff and a greyhound. There are many portraits of the beasts spread throughout the narrative, and often they look the photographer in the eye, communicating gravitas.

The book follows Mr. Naudé’s expanding explorations, focusing on the relationship between animals, and the people who raise them. (In several parts of South Africa.) We see an enormous bull on a beach, a man riding an ostrich, the extruding feet of a calf being born, another man holding a clawless otter, a different bull urinating on the green grass, and goats and zebras and donkeys. (Oh my.)

The compositions are formal, the light well-rendered, and the captions give just the information required. No more. No less.

It might seem hard-to-believe, for some of you, that I manage to find things to write about each week. (I’m not that interesting, after all.) But the real pleasure of this job is that I get to rejuvenate my curiosity, at regular intervals. The joy comes when I see photographs I’ve never seen before: rectangular or square bits of new information. This book delivered. Enough said.

Bottom Line: Very cool photos of animals, and the people who love/eat them

To Purchase “Animal Farm” Visit Photo Eye