From Neatorama:
The first thought that ran across my mind when I read Joel Sartore’s book Rare: Portraits of America’s Endangered Species
was that it’s a gorgeous book. Joel, a National Geographic photographer, has been on a 20-year personal mission to photograph examples of the world’s most endangered species, so you’d kinda expect that out of him.
There are currently about 1,500 known species in the world that are endangered – Joel presents 68 of them in his book, ranging from wolves to wolverines, pitcher plant to pineapple cactus; all exquisitely photographed. As an amateur point-and-shoot photographer (erhm, that’s being generous – I mostly take blurry photos of my kids), I can only imagine how long it took him to get that Eastern Hellbender photo!
The second thought that ran across my mind was that it’s a rather sad book. One of the last two Columbia Basin pygmy rabbits in the world died a few months after Joel took its photograph (you’ll read more about this below).
It took me a while, however, to realize just what Joel’s book actually meant. For me, that meaning can be summed up in just one word: hope.
More here. And two bonus videos:
RARE from Joel Sartore on Vimeo.