Born in Munich in 1963, photographer Michael Martin must surely have been a nomad in another life, as he's become the world's photographer of the African deserts. Over the years, he's published 15 books and taken at least 80 journeys throughout the world's deserts, in often dangerous conditions. This book, five years in the making, is sort of a culmination of his work to date, and it's lovely. Thankfully, Martin's as interested in the inhabitants of these far-flung and strangely shifting lands as he is in the stark beauty of the environments themselves. None of the commentary is hackneyed or written with postcolonial prejudices; on the contrary, it's quite clear the long-haired and adventurous Martin wishes he could be living in the desert himself. If you think this is going to be all a bunch of pictures of sand in various formations, you are sorely mistaken. Here are breathtaking images of mineral-encrusted salt lakes, strange craggy rocks, beautiful cacti, and people with weather-beaten faces who live in trailer homes, tents and medieval towns. --Mike McGonigal
Book Description
Magnificent desert landscapes from every part of the globe, together with photographs of their imaginative, adaptable, dignified inhabitants. Internationally renowned photographer Michael Martin has traveled through every desert on earth, crossing Asia, Australia, the Americas, and Africa, seeking out the most spectacular landscapes, from the Rub al-Khali to the Great Sandy Desert, the Great Basin, and the Kalahari. Many of these "wastelands" consist of more than just desert sand. Afghanistan's Bamian region is notable for its deep blue-green lakes set in a rocky landscape. The Danakil's unnamed volcanoes glow in the Ethiopian night, while Chile's Atacama region harbors geysers that can erupt at any moment. Martin was joined on his five-year motorcycle odyssey by camerawoman Elke Wallner, who has documented the major deserts of the world in a television series. Together they overcame numerous obstacles—political and physical—to accomplish a journey of some 60,000 miles and the first single-volume documentation of earth's breathtaking desert landscapes. 300 color photographs and 23 maps.
About the Author
Michael Martin has won numerous awards for his photography. His most recent book is Deserts of Africa.
Deserts of the Earth FROM THE PUBLISHER
Magnificent desert landscapes from every part of the globe, together with photographs of their imaginative, adaptable, dignified inhabitants.
Internationally renowned photographer Michael Martin has traveled through every desert on earth, crossing Asia, Australia, the Americas, and Africa, seeking out the most spectacular landscapes, from the Rub al-Khali to the Great Sandy Desert, the Great Basin, and the Kalahari.
Many of these "wastelands" consist of more than just desert sand. Afghanistan's Bamian region is notable for its deep blue-green lakes set in a rocky landscape. The Danakil's unnamed volcanoes glow in the Ethiopian night, while Chile's Atacama region harbors geysers that can erupt at any moment.
Martin was joined on his five-year motorcycle odyssey by camerawoman Elke Wallner, who has documented the major deserts of the world in a television series. Together they overcame numerous obstacles—political and physical—to accomplish a journey of some 60,000 miles and the first single-volume documentation of earth's breathtaking desert landscapes. 300 color photographs and 23 maps.
Author Biography: Michael Martin has won numerous awards for his photography. His most recent book is Deserts of Africa.
FROM THE CRITICS
Jennifer Howard - The Washington Post
Martin, like Lawrence, has a deep affinity for the desert, and it shows in this globe-ranging tribute to aridity. The Great Sandy, the Kalahari and the Karoo, the Namib -- around the world Martin goes, continent by continent, recording the particulars of ecosystems that make up a third of the planet's surface. Wisely, Martin uses science to offset the natural romance of his subject; early chapters answer the question "What is a desert?" and introduce "Types of deserts and their causes," while maps set the scene for each continent. In a foreword, Michael Asher, a biographer of Lawrence and his fellow desert-lover Wilfred Thesiger, offers up an echo of Lawrence's idea that the desert is clean: "There are no crowds, no endlessly roaring engines, no works of man to stand between you and the planet." During these frenetic days, nothing sounds so good.
Art & Photography
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