The Day May Break, photographed in Zimbabwe and Kenya in late 2020, is the first part of a global series portraying people and animals that have been impacted by environmental degradation and destruction. The people in the photos were all affected by climate change, displaced by cyclones and years-long droughts. Photographed at five sanctuaries, the animals were rescues that can never be re-wilded. As a result, it was safe for human strangers to be close to them, photographed so close to them, within the same frame. The fog on location is the unifying visual, as we increasingly find ourselves in a kind of limbo, a once-recognizable world now fading from view. However, in spite of their loss, these people and animals are the survivors. And therein lies possibility and hope.

NICK BRANDT (*1964) studied film and painting at St. Martin’s in London. He turned to photography in 2001 with his trilogy On This Earth, A Shadow Falls, Across the Ravage Land. His more recent bodies of work / books are Inherit the Dust (2016) and This Empty World (2019). He lives in California.