Into Africa

The release of a new Frans Lanting book is always a photographic event. Keith Wilson talks to the master about his latest work, which celebrates the landscape, people and wildlife of Africa over four decades

Few wildlife photographers can match Frans Lanting’s consistent ability to produce books that raise the bar each time for the quality and epic scale of the images he captures. Titles such as Madagascar (1984), Okavango (1993), Eye to Eye (1997), Jungles (2000) and Life (2007) have earned numerous awards and plaudits. In describing Lanting’s work, The New Yorker once wrote, ‘No photographer turns animals into art more completely than Frans Lanting.’ So, when news breaks that a new Frans Lanting book is about to be published, expectation runs high among photographers, nature lovers, magazine editors and conservationists all over the world.

Lanting’s new book is called Into Africa, and as the title suggests, it is a pictorial journey into the continent that has been the source of so much of his creative inspiration. ‘I’ve been in and out of Africa for more than 30 years and I’ve criss-crossed the continent on many expeditions,’ he says, speaking from his home in Santa Cruz, California. ‘We have put together a book that is a mosaic of the continent. It’s a coverage of the major biomes from the forests, to the savannahs, to the deserts, to the islands – because it includes Madagascar – so it’s an overview of what I’ve seen and what I’ve learned. Many journeys.’