Rainforest [Hardcover]

Ben Morgan (Author), Thomas Marent (Photographer), The Rainforest Foundation (Foreword)

Book Description

Publication Date: August 21, 2006

Thomas Marent, a self-taught photographer who has dedicated half his life to capturing images of rainforest life, tells the story of his journey through these spectacular photographs. Join him as he travels across five continents for an up-close view of the astonishing variety and fascinating behavior of rainforest plants and trees, reptiles, birds, amphibians, insects, and mammals.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Over the past 16 years Swiss photographer Thomas Marent has traveled all over the world photographing rainforests, from Peru and Ecuador to New Zealand and Papua New Guinea. Usually traveling alone, Marent has been known to spend extraordinary lengths of time to get the perfect shot--sometimes 12 days. You can see the results in his first book, Rainforest. The book is his testament--an intimate collection of more than 500 breathtaking animal and plant portraits, and the fascinating stories behind them.

Questions for Thomas Marent

Amazon.com: What inspired you to start taking pictures?

Marent: I used to be a birdwatcher in Switzerland--and soon I was also interested in amphibians, insects, and plants. After a while I thought it would be nice to have pictures of all these beautiful animals.

Amazon.com: Waiting for the perfect shot takes patience and time. How do you decide what images are worth waiting for?

Marent: I mostly focus on the colorful and spectacularly shaped creatures. Sometimes it is a matter of luck to find them, but sometimes I have to know where and when to look for them.

Amazon.com: What photo in Rainforest is your favorite?

Marent: I don't have one favorite--there are many favorites! I especially like the photos of frogs, butterflies, fungi, birds and weird insects.

Amazon.com: What would people find most surprising about the world's rainforests?

Marent: When people think of the rainforest, it's the monkeys, birds, and wild cats that first come to mind. But there are so many small and beautiful creatures. We need to see and appreciate them too--they're just a little harder to find! Many of these smaller creatures have never been seen by most people.

Amazon.com: Do you consider yourself a rainforest activist?

Marent: With the book I want to show to the people the endless beauty of the rainforests. I do hope that it might open the eyes of some people, so that they'll agree that it's worth protecting this fantastic environment.

Amazon.com: Some of the photos in the book, especially some of the insect photos, are really strange and otherworldly. What's your favorite exotic rainforest animal?

Marent: Some of my favorites always were frogs and butterflies, but birds and monkeys as well. And of course the weird-looking insects.

Amazon.com: What's your favorite rainforest?

Marent: In Asia it is Borneo. In Africa it is Madagascar. In Latin America it is Costa Rica and Peru/Colombia. But I also like the Australian and New Zealand rainforests.

Amazon.com: Do you have any advice for amateur nature photographers?

Marent: A tripod is an absolutely must. Try to move to the animals slowly and quietly--it takes some patience. Whenever possible try taking your pictures at the animal's eye level. And it's always important to think about the background when you compose the picture.

From Booklist

Marent has spent half his life photographing rain forests from Papua New Guinea and New Zealand to Ecuador and Peru. Marent is self-taught, and his evocative work manifests an inborn talent for capturing detail and grace in every photograph, whether it be a study of the delicate wing of a butterfly or the bumpy-ridged hide of the Malayan horned frog. Each section is a delight for the eyes, the minimized companion text posted like road signs to help readers maintain their bearings while focusing on the luscious photographs. Each inhabitant of the rain forest becomes memorable for its clever camouflage, ingenious coexistence with the other species of this fragile world, or even its sheer size, in the case of the 42-inch-wide Rafflesia flower. Rain-forest advocates have no better friend than Marent. His 16-year photographic love affair with these essential ecosystems has resulted in an invaluable survey of the magnificent rain-forest's abundance and diversity of life. Pamela Crossland
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 360 pages
• Publisher: DK ADULT; First Edition edition (August 21, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0756619408
• ISBN-13: 978-0756619404
• Product Dimensions: 12.1 x 10.3 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 4.8 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (39 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #779,686 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #65 in Books > Science & Math > Nature & Ecology > Rain Forests

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

38 of 39 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A true gem, September 21, 2006

By 

Piotr Naskrecki (Woburn, MA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Rainforest (Hardcover)

This book is one of the most spectacular collections of nature photography I have ever seen. The author spent 16 years traveling across the tropics, capturing with his camera the very essence of the rainforest ecosystem. Ranging from majestic panoramas of the forest to intimate portraits of birds and mammals (how did he get those wide angle portraits of monkeys?!) to fantastic close ups of invertebrates and mushrooms, this book explores tropical humid forest at all its levels. The message of this magnificent collection is clear - rainforests are the pinnacle of life on Earth, a jewel-studded crown of Nature; they are libraries of genetic and biotic diversity that must be saved at all cost.
I recommend this book to all nature lovers and photography aficionados. I recommend it even more to those who don't care about the rainforest and its preservation - if these images cannot convince you about the value and uniqueness of this habitat, nothing will.

14 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Now you can have the world's rain forests and their sounds at your fingertips!!!, September 3, 2007

By 

Stephen Pletko "Uncle Stevie" (London, Ontario, Canada) - See all my reviews
(TOP 1000 REVIEWER)   

This review is from: Rainforest (Hardcover)

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This breathtaking book takes the reader on an awe-inspiring five continent tour of rain forest tree and plants, reptiles, birds, amphibians, insect, and mammals.

The book itself can be divided into three components:

(1) Photographs (with informative captions)
(2) Text
(3) CD

The photographs are spectacular and jaw dropping! For over sixteen years, nature photographer Thomas Marent has traveled around the world to achieve the difficult task of recording the diverse, complex, unexplored, and endangered ecosystems of rain forests. In other words, these spectacular color photos capture close-up images of some of the most rarely visited places on Earth.

The photographs are divided into five sections: (1) panorama (2) diversity (3) survival (has three sub-divisions entitled predator, arms and armor, deception) (4) cycles (has three sub-divisions entitled flowers to fruit, lifelines, recyclers) and (5) society.

The number of captioned photos for each section is as follows (these totals are rounded off):

Panorama: 40; Diversity: 20; Survival 170; Cycles: 105; Society: 45. There are also about 10 captioned photos that appear before the table of contents. (TOTAL captioned photos in entire book: 400.)

There is a well-written text that accompanies many photographs giving the reader facts and figures about the rain forests and their diverse plant, insect, and insect inhabitants. (The last chapter of this book entitled "Rainforests of the world" is especially well done.) As well, there are fascinating brief stories and descriptions (in quotation marks) that were said by photographer Marent that accompany some of the photos.

You might be tempted to just look at the photographs with their captions and skip the text. However, you would be cheating yourself. I feel that the comprehensive text should be read to fill in the gaps about rain forests that the photographs do not and cannot provide.

The third component of this mesmerizing book is the 80 minute, 23 track audio CD entitled "Sounds of the Rainforest" inserted into an envelope attached to the inside back cover. Recorded on it are sounds that are unique to the rain forests around the world. On the insertion envelope itself, we're told what the main sound is on eleven of these tracks. More than a quarter of this CD is devoted to the sounds of the Amazon Rain Forest (the world's largest rain forest). (Note that many of the titles on the CD itself (but not on its insertion envelope) are in a foreign language. My favorite tracks are 14 to 16, 20 to 23.)

This CD definitely does "enhance the unique experience of this book."

I should tell the potential buyer of this book that "2% of the royalties from this book are paid to The Rainforest Foundation," a foundation devoted to the long-term protection of rain forests. The singer Sting is a founding patron of this foundation.

Finally, I had some problems with this book. Note that these in no way affect the book's readability but are more "irritations:"

(1) Who wrote the text for this book? From the book's front cover (displayed above by Amazon) it's Thomas Marent. Right? Wrong!! He's responsible for the photographs (and some of his verbal statements are included with the text). On the title page (located on page 2) of this book we have "Thomas Marent with Ben Morgan." If you go to the copyright page there is in small print "Text copyright 2006 Dorling Kindersley [abbreviated DK] Limited." We're also told all images are copyright to Marent.

Thus Ben Morgan, a writer for DK (I think??), is the author of this book. Why is his name not also displayed on the book's cover?

(2) Where did Morgan get all the facts and figures for his text? There is no reference section that tells us.

(3) I almost missed the fact that there's a CD with this book! I just happened to read the back cover and there is a little blurb that tells the reader that there's a CD (but not where it's located). We're only told what the main sounds are on 11 of its 23 tracks. Why? And why are we not told that there's a CD at the front of the book?

In conclusion, this is a unique and stunningly beautiful book about rain forests around the world. I leave you with a list of facts found in a "fact box" entitled "Wealth of the Rainforests" that itself is found in the last chapter of this remarkable book:

(i) One-fifth of the world's fresh water is in the Amazon River basin.

(ii) Almost all the medicine we use every day come from plants endemic to the rainforest.

(iii) A single pond in Brazil [that holds over half of the Amazon Rain Forest and holds about one-third of the world's remaining tropical rain forests] can sustain a greater variety of fish than is found in all of Europe's rivers.

(iv) If present rates of destruction [of rain forests] continue, there will be no rainforests remaining by 2060.

(copyright 2006; forward; a photographer's passion; 6 chapters; main narrative 360 pages; photographing the rainforest; index; acknowledgements; "sounds of the rainforest" CD)

<<Stephen Pletko or "Uncle Stevie," London, Ontario, Canada>>

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17 of 18 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Amazing book for parents and children, September 27, 2006

By 

P. Beard (Lathrup Village, MI USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Rainforest (Hardcover)

My [....] son and I stumbled across this book last night and we were absolutely captivated. He is currently studying plants in science and many of the photographs were of plants discussed in class. The photographs mesmerized both of us and we ended up buying the book. I stayed awake to the early morning hours slowly turning the pages as I saw plants and animals in ways I had never before seen.

This morning, my son brought it to school where he shared it with the other kids prior to first bell. There were 15 nine and ten year olds jockeying for the best view with "cool" and "awesome" said only the way a child can. They completely missed the sound of the bell and their teacher came out to see what the delay was. She too fell in love and the book stayed at school to be shared with all the [....] classes over the next few days.

This book deserves more than 5 stars.