Upcoming Events & Exhibits

We have several upcoming Jim Brandenburg exhibits and presentations to share with you.  All exhibits and events are listed under the Events & Exhibits page of this blog.

The Jim Brandenburg retrospective exhibit, A Pristine Vision, is on display in Iserlohn until January 29th at the Municipal Art Gallery Iserlohn, Germany. Jim will give a presentation in Iserlohn about his work and this exhibit on January 27th.

A Pristine Vision will open on March 17, 2012 to May 27, 2012 at Salo Art Museum, Salo, Finland.

Municipal Art Gallery ~ Iserlohn, Germany

Chased by the Light is on display at the Bell Museum of Natural History, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, Minnesota through May 13, 2012.

Touch the Sky is showing at The Anthropology Museum, Northern Illinois University through April 14, 2012.  Touch the Sky exhibit is the premiere exhibition in this beautiful new space.  Please note: The museum will be open for special tours and and by appointment only January 17 - February 11.

A Tribute to Nature is currently on display through February 19, 2012 in Tokyo, Japan at the Konica Minolta Plaza.

2012 Jim Brandenburg Calendar

We just received a very small supply of 2012 Jim Brandenburg wall calendars from a client.  The calendars were produced by our client and were not offered to the US public.  It is a 12-month calendar,  each month features a different Jim Brandenburg image from around the world.  The calendar is sized at 20.25" x 14.25".    Sorry, we do not have images of the inside pages.

We have only 10 calendars and we will not be offering them on our website, they will only be offered here.  Each calendar sells for $20.00 plus shipping and can be purchased by clicking the Buy Now button below.

The calendar is now sold out. Thank you!

50 Greatest Pictures

National Geographic 50 Greatest Pictures issue is now available in print and an iPad app.  This special edition includes Jim's well-known image of the leaping arctic wolf.   The image originally ran in the May 1987 issue of National Geographic magazine as part of Jim's story "At Home with the Arctic Wolf," documenting the arctic wolves of Ellesmere Island, Canada. 

Grouse in Winter

The northern forest of Minnesota has had a record breaking and extremely mild winter thus far with very little snow. As temperatures dropped today to below 0˙ F, this sleeping ruffed grouse rests on the ground since there has not been enough snow cover for its preferred roost under the snow in cold temps.

Ruffed grouse are able to use snow roosts when light and fluffy snow conditions reach 8" or more. The grouse dives into the powdery snow from a headlong flight. Once inside the snowpack, they burrow a few feet further looking for a comfortable, well-hidden roost like the accompanying photograph shows. Here a grouse had penetrated the show then burrowed and stuck its head out a couple times, then exited after a sleep.

In years of deep snow, the inside temperature of a snow roost can be as much as 50˙ F warmer than the outside temperatures. A snow roost gives the grouse an additional advantage of being hidden from view of predators such as hawks, owls, fox, wolves, coyotes and lynx. The metabolic energy they conserve allows them to spend less time foraging, further reducing their exposure to attack. In years like this with little snow and cold temps as we see now, the grouse population suffers.

Wolf in front of Ravenwood

Over the weekend, Jim noticed this gray wolf crossing the creek in front of his home, Ravenwood, near the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness outside of Ely, Minnesota. He only had a moment to grab his iPhone and film.

A New Years Eve Moment

For many years now I have canoed or skied past this island point in the Boundary Waters wilderness. I often pause to look at that white cedar that ekes out a delicate living as it clings to the vertical bare rock face. Tenacious trees like this can easily reach several hundred years of age. Growing is slow with no soil and few nutrients but the location does allow it to survive fire and windstorms. A couple of miles away is a cedar that is at least 1500 years old. No doubt, more survive hidden on secluded cliffs across the border that no one has or ever will see. Bonsai relics that give one a kind of peace just knowing they are there.

On my New Years Eve ski this year I passed by this old friend again. The trail of fox tracks made the scene irresistible - two accounts of time played as the falling snow forever covered the fox’s brief story while the old cedar endures. As brief as the fox passing was I saw as much description in the paw print narrative, as a short story in a magazine would tell. I’ve spent a lifetime interpreting those signs and enjoy spending an hour following a trail like this as much as reading a book.

Did an Ojibwa quietly place a tobacco offering from his birch bark canoe in the hole at the base of the cedar tree’s trunk? How much forgotten and lost history has played out in front of this old veteran? What was the name of the last French Voyageur that paddled past the tree in the late 1800’s?

A new numbered calendar of time that we now swap for the old doesn’t mean much in that world. 

 Jim Brandenburg  1.1.12

Happy New Year!

Celebrating Winter Solstice

Live in each season as it passes; breathe the air, drink the drink, taste the fruit, and resign yourself to the influences of each. - Henry David Thoreau

Jim Brandenburg's best-selling book Chased by the Light is now available as an app for the iPad. This amazing interactive book takes you along on Jim's 90-day photographic journey with insight and imagery like never before. Integrated with his beautiful and evocative photographs are video clips from the Chased by the Light documentary and music and audio clips from acoustic performing artist Michael Monroe.

"Looking at the Chased by the Light app on an iPad is like seeing the images for the first time all over again," says Jim. "I love books, but this re-birth takes the experience to a new level."
 
To get back to the soul of his work, Jim sets himself the task of taking only one photograph each day for the ninety days of fall.  The landscape he chooses is his home - the boreal forest of northern Minnesota.  "I had set myself a challenge: that for ninety days between the autumnal equinox and winter solstice I would make only one photograph a day.  There would be no second exposure, no second chance."  The images that result are quietly provoking.  In a wonderful progression, we follow him through the first snowfall into the depths of winter - an amazing journey.
 
"I am excited to have such a stunning and high quality new way to show images that I have worked so hard to capture... My congratulations to the team that put so much effort and talent into its construction," says Jim.
 
The entire photographic collection appeared in the November 1997 issue of National Geographic magazine as North Woods Journal.  This story was- according to editor William Allen - "the most photographs the magazine has ever published in one feature in its entire history...and by the way, using the least amount of film."

Jim is currently working on his next app, which will be a retrospective of his life's work. An exhibition of these 120 photographs is currently touring museums in Europe. 

The Chased by the Light app is available in the iTunes App Store or can be found at http://apps.jimbrandenburg.com/cbtl/Apps.html

Chased by the Light Exhibit Starts Saturday!

“Chased By the Light: Jim Brandenburg’s 90-Day Photo Journey” comes back to the University of Minnesota’s Bell Museum of Natural History for a new showing that opens December 10, 2011 and runs through May 13, 2012. It’s the first time in 13 years the popular exhibit will be available to Twin City area residents. The exhibit has thrilled audiences nationwide since its debut.

Brandenburg began his photo journey with a simple plan: "In autumn I set out to make one photograph—one single exposure—each day for 90 days. I hoped with patience and endurance to renew my vision of the natural world."

After 90 days what emerged from the deep woods in and around the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness, was a changed photographer—with three rolls of film. Each roll, filled with images that represented Brandenburg’s feelings about the essence of wild places—a raven feather in the rain; a tree marked by a bear; a vibrant view of aurora borealis.

In today’s era of quick communication, mind-boggling amounts of media and digital cameras providing the user a nearly never-ending supply of photos to alter, crop and color, “Chased By the Light” is more relevant than ever.

“Setting aside time to slow down—to study and contemplate nature and the world around us is a timeless message, and this exhibit is a great way to inspire people to do this,” says Bell Museum exhibit curator Don Luce.

For Luce, documenting our relationship with nature is not only good for the spirit, it’s also key to the preservation of memories. “The BWCA where many of the images were shot has been in the news of late. With climate change, intense storms and fires, the north woods are changing rapidly. This area we thought we set aside to be preserved forever, may be a very different place for our children and grandchildren. Jim's photos will be an important visual documentation of what this place was once like.”

All 90 of Brandenburg’s “Chased By the Light” images will be on display in the West Gallery at the Bell Museum along with a selection of images from the same areas Brandenburg took after the major storm of 1999. A video theater provides a behind-the-scenes exploration of methods and meanings of Brandenburg’s remarkable images.

Brandenburg spent three decades traveling the world as a photographer with National Geographic Magazine. His piece, “NorthWoods Journal,” the impetus for Chased By the Light, made National Geographic history. According to editor William Allen, it was “the most photographs the magazine had ever published in one feature in its entire history…and by the way, using the least amount of film.”

Happy Thanksgiving

"Growing up, this was a common sight at Thanksgiving near my boyhood home. Fields like this were a familiar landscape and have remained a fond visual memory. This is a recent photograph I made next to my prairie farm in Rock County, Minnesota. On the other side of the road lies our pride and joy, Touch the Sky Prairie. 

Happy Thanksgiving to you all." 

Jim Brandenburg

New Wolves & Thoughts from Jim

I first came to the Boundary Waters 40 years ago from the treeless prairie.  I picked this area because of the waterfall near Moose Lake. The local animal lore shared with me that this was a special place that animals were frequently seen.  Through amazing circumstances, I was able to obtain the waterfall property and build my home, which I call Ravenwood.   The wolf was the prime animal that drew me to the north woods and over the past 30 years I have indeed been blessed with many lifetimes worth of photographic memories including one particular image – Brother Wolf – that changed my life.  Through these years, I’ve learned much about the individual body language and coloration of the neighborhood wolf pack’s progeny. When I first came to Ely, the locals called the black wolves Siberian wolves.  I haven’t heard that term in a long time. 

In the past three years my attentions have been focused on projects in Europe and I had not been paying particular attention to the local packs of wolves. But this fall, upon returning to Ravenwood after a month’s absence, I noticed an unusual amount of wolf sign near my house.  I decided to start following my instincts again and focused in on the wolves for a day.  I was pleasantly surprised when I came upon these three pups.  They are approximately six months old, and represent the three color phases of wolves I have seen through my years: 
the lightest, black and the reddish. 

 The following photographs represent the last three generations of our neighborhood pack.

 _________________________________

This year’s three pups

Blond Pup

Blond Pup Catching Flies

Blackie Pup

Rusty Pup

 _________________________________

This is the mother of the three pups; we call her "Mama Blackie."   I made this image about 4 years ago.  I just saw Mama Blackie  on November 5, two days after 
writing this post, and she is now all silver.

Mama Blackie

 _________________________________

Grandpa Blackie has his tail sticking straight up on the right, Grandma Blondie is on the left with her tail elevated and two of their pups in the middle (one being Mama Blackie). All the black wolves I’ve seen from this pack eventually turn silver gray after four years, if they live that long.   

 Grandpa Blackie had very large feet, in fact, one of our hunter neighbors thought Grandpa Blackie’s tracks were of a mountain lion because they were so big.   

My Neighbors

Blackie at Dusk

Wolf Pack Rests

Wolf Pack Howling on Lake

A number of years ago the area pack reached 19 wolves.  I had photographed every member of the pack and had given each one a name for my own identification.  Sadly, during hunting season, Grandpa Blackie was killed. Several other members of his pack also disappeared.  Grandpa Blackie’s radio collar had been cut off and discarded near Ely – with no sign of his body.  The disruption to the pack caused a major disbursement of the other members. I have seen how extremely sensitive a wolf family can be; but now as you see with this year’s three pups,

they have slowly started to make a comeback.  

-Jim Brandenburg

Jim is currently creating an extensive book on wolves (which will also be available as an iPad app). This book will feature his latest work and highlight elements from his award winning books White Wolf and Brother Wolf.  Check back for updates.

Seasonal Collector's Print #29 ~ Prairie Coneflowers

We have a winner!  Our summer seasonal Collector's Print is Prairie Coneflowers.  Prairie Coneflowers received 41% of the vote , followed by Noirmoutier Isle Trees and then Prairie Impressionism.  Thank you for helping us choose the next image to add to our collection!

Purple coneflowers and prairie coneflowers dance amongst the grasses with the prairie wind on a warm August day in Minnesota. As Ralph Waldo Emerson said "Earth laughs in flowers."   -Jim Brandenburg

The Jim Brandenburg Collectors Series features four seasonal prints a year. Each season, we will feature a new image that has never been printed, and will be available only at the Brandenburg Gallery. The featured image will be a signed and titled, 12"x8" Giclee Fine Art Print on 100% cotton paper at a special price of $75 or framed for $230. Previous seasonal images can be purchased at any time for $125 or framed for $280.

Arctic Wolf Included in Top 10 Milestones in Photography

National Geographic's Top 10 Milestones in Wildlife Photography includes Jim's image of an arctic wolf testing the water on Ellesmere Island. 

In the mid-1980s, Jim spent 3 consecutive summers on Ellesmere Island working with a pack of wild arctic wolves.  This extraordinary portfolio of wildlife photographs was first featured in the May, 1987 issue of National Geographic magazine, followed by the publication of Jim's best-seller, White Wolf.  Jim also was Producer, Director and Cinematographer of a National Geographic movie, White Wolf, based on the same arctic wolf pack.  Today, Jim still considers this project as the highlight of his career.

Love this image?  It's available as wallpaper from National Geographic or a signed photographic print from jimbrandenburg.com.

The Sad Passing of a Visionary

Jim's Macintosh Plus and iPad 2.  Photos made with Jim's iPhone 4.

With the recent passing of Steve Jobs, I've been thinking about how he changed the world of photography and the various Apple products I have owned.  My first Mac, the Macintosh Plus with 1MB of RAM, was given to me by Apple when it was released in 1986.  I still have the ancient model in my office.  I had never typed a single word until I received that Mac!  My second Mac was a Quadra 950 with 250MB of RAM, all for the low price of $10,000.  The salesperson thought I was crazy and would never use 250MB RAM.  Today, we're using 4GB of RAM.  I've had over 20 Macs since then, including my most recent purchase, the iPad 2 pictured above.  And I'm sure there will be many more to come.

Steve Jobs revolutionized technology, and made life a little more fun!

Which image should be the Summer 2011 Collector's Print?

With summer officially over, it is finally time to select our seasonal print!

Please cast your vote below.

Prairie Impressionism

Purple Coneflowers II

Noirmoutier Isle Trees - France

Which image should be the Summer 2011 Collector's Print?

Jim Brandenburg Speaking Engagement

The Recycling Association of Minnesota Fall Conference will feature Jim Brandenburg as the guest speaker.  Members and the general public are invited to attend, registration is necessary.  Jim will be signing books in the exhibit hall after the presentation.

 

 

Thursday, October 13, 2011 · 8:00am - 9:00am

Recycling Association of Minnesota Fall Conference

Minneapolis Convention Center

1301 Second Avenue South

Minneapolis, MN

Please register at http://recycleminnesota.org/index.php/programs/ram-events

End of the Summer Sale in the Brandenburg Gallery!

Now is the time to visit (or call) the Brandenburg Gallery in Ely!  We are having an end of the summer sale -- savings up to 70%*!

All In-Stock framed prints ON SALE!
Select Matted Prints
Select Oiva Toikka hand-blown glass birds by Iittala
Imperfect posters, lithos, and cards.

Stop in, say hello to our wonderful staff and take advantage of these great prices.  

Sale starts Friday, September 2 and will continue through the end of September.

*Sale prices apply only to items in stock (special orders are excluded) and purchased in store or by phone. All sales are final.

Jim on Assignment in France

Jim is currently working on a project near Mont Saint Michel, France.  He has photographed Mont Saint Michel many times, it is one of his favorite European subjects. 

Mont Saint Michel is is a rocky tidal island and a commune in Normandy.  It is located approximately one kilometre (just over half a mile) off the country's north coast, at the mouth of the Couesnon River near Avranches. The population of the island is less than 50.

German Interview with Jim on North German Television

(Unfortunately, the link has been removed by the creator of the link.  Sorry for the inconvenience.)

Happy Belated 76th Birthday to the Dalai Lama!

Laughing

Watching

"Love and compassion are necessities, not luxuries. Without them humanity cannot survive."

In May, Jim spent several days photographing the Dalai Lama during official visit to Minnesota.  The images above were made during Jim's time with His Holiness.

Independence Day ~ United States of America

And so, my fellow Americans, ask not what your country can do for you; ask what you can do for your country.   -John F. Kennedy

Have a wonderful and safe 4th of July!

Retrospective Exhibit & Presentation

The premiere of Jim's retrospective exhibit and presentation "A Pristine Vision," in Schleswig, Germany was a big success!    Jim enjoyed his time in Germany and is looking forward to a return visit.  Please CLICK HERE to view photos of the events.

 All event photos ©Mr. Henrik Matzen, http://www.photomatzen.de

People & Nature Festival - La Gacilly, France

Festival Photo Peuples et Nature de la Gacilly

The year 2011 was proclaimed International Year of the Forest by the United Nations General Assembly. The goal: to raise awareness and strengthen initiatives that would contribute to the sustainable management of our forests for the benefit of present and future.

For its eighth year, the Festival of La Gacilly will be full of artists, including Jim Brandenburg, who educate us about the dangers of losing this aspect of our green Earth. Each year 13 million hectares of forests are destroyed. A true global issue. Peoples or civilizations have disappeared, and continue to do so, for failing to maintain their plant environment. The tree is a source of life. It produces oxygen, its roots fix the soil, retain and purify water, its leaves fertilize the soil, and its branches slow the winds. A land without trees would be a land without life.  

Open and free to the public, the festival will once again transform the Breton village of La Gacilly into an outdoor art gallery with more than 400 large photographic images. The exhibit is open until September 30, 2011.

Happy Solstice, Happy Summer!

European Hares - Infrared

Long Winding Road - Infrared

“On the Summer Solstice ...Whatever is dreamed on this night, will come to pass.”
—William Shakespeare, A Midsummernight's Dream