Life in the Wild: A Photographer's Year [Hardcover]

Andy Rouse (Author), Chris Packham (Foreword)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 2002

One of the best at the art of wildlife photography presents a year of his work in an informative and visually remarkable diary. From January's visit to India (and its magnificent tigers) to March's Arctic journey (where a sleeping polar cub lies atop mama bear) to December's African safari (leopards, jackals, hyenas), each month includes valuable information on planning a trip, packing equipment, and taking the actual shot. Almost every page features breathtaking examples of the author's pictures, and special boxed tips focus on shooting in low-light, selecting film stock, capturing silhouettes, and more. Digital cameras, underwater photography, macro lenses, coping with weather and its effects, and producing scans: it's all here, along with advice on photographing "local wildlife," because even when you're home, the fun can continue.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 192 pages
• Publisher: Guild of Master Craftsman Publications (April 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1861082681
• ISBN-13: 978-1861082688
• Product Dimensions: 10.5 x 10.3 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.6 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,984,906 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Discover books, learn about writers, read author blogs, and more.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Outstanding Photography, Educational and Entertaining, June 29, 2004

By 

[e-mail] (Long Island, NY) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Life in the Wild: A Photographer's Year (Hardcover)

Professional UK photographer Andy Rouse is well known for his outstanding nature photographs, and this book is filled cover-to-cover with them. The accompanying text is informative, including plenty of tips and insight on how the author captured the images. Andy's witty anecdotal style is a pleasant departure from most other books of the genre, making Life in the Wild a thoroughly enjoyable book to read as well.

Highly recommended!

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Authors Extra Comments, June 28, 2004

By 

Andy Rouse - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Life in the Wild: A Photographer's Year (Hardcover)

HI, I just wanted to put my side of a review that I just read from a US reader. All of my comments in the book are tongue in cheek and have generally been read that way by the thousands of photographers that have enjoyed this book in Europe. If they aren't then it is solely down to our difference in humour between the US and Europe. I do not have a negative view of other photographers, far from it in fact, like I said everything has to be taken tongue in cheek. So I really hope that you enjoy LIfe in the Wild and that it makes you laugh, as that is it's intention - to lighten a subject that is often far too serious.

5 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Beautiful photographs; Snobby author, May 29, 2004

By A Customer

This review is from: Life in the Wild: A Photographer's Year (Hardcover)

This book features beautiful photographs, including both those taken on Rouse's home turf (England) and others taken in locales ranging from Brazil to Madagascar. Each chapter describes one month of a typical year in Rouse's life, focusing one or two photography projects Rouse tackled that month.

Photographers will get some good tips by reading this book, although note that at the time Rouse wrote this book he was almost exclusively a film photographer rather than digital. Also, as the book went on the author became more involved in medium format photography and began to leave 35mm behind.

The fly in the ointment is Rouse's own personality. His comments towards the other photographers he meets along the way are snide, sneering, and condescending. This is true whether the other photographers are snapshooters, ecotourists, advanced amateurs, semi-pros or professionals.

Thus, in his international travels Rouse is hampered by other photographers in India, but in the end he wins because he was riding on the fastest elephant. On a boat trip to the Farne Islands he stays dry because (he thinks) the captain selected the best seat for him.

To cite one example of Rouse's annoying egotism, in South Africa he encounters a group of ecotourists, and is irritated at them because they arrived at a leopard kill first. "We nicknamed them brainlackers, but only in private, as they always gave us nice chocolate biscuits for elevenses."

In short, I enjoyed the pictures, and did read the book through to the end. I did find the author's egotism to be annoying, however.