United States
£ GBP
This book presents the second compilation of Sri Lankan wildlife photographs published by Lalith Ekanayake, following his notably successful volume, The Untamed Road: A Visual Miscellany of the Sri Lankan Wilderness, published in 2010. The photographs presented in this album, however, are altogether new. Based largely in the forests of the south-eastern and north-western arid zones of the island, they present glimpses of the island’s wildlife that few nature lovers, be they ever so zealous, would see in a lifetime. While most of the images focus on action – the tension between predator and prey, between man and animal, between fight and flight – the few included portraits speak volumes to the character of their subjects: the fierce glare of the adjutant stork, the apprehension of the loris, the grace of the "leopard in motion.
Animal Verses encapsulates not just the atmosphere of the Sri Lankan wilderness but the frenetic interactions of its inhabitants. Each carefuIIy-selected photograph (many of them prize-winners) portrays a rare and fleeting moment that illustrates the life – and often the death – of an animal. And yet each image has been selected not just because of its subject but because of its outstanding artistic appeal.
As he did with The Untamed Road, here too, Ekanayake raises the bar of Sri Lankan wildlife photography yet higher. Animal Verses, within the pages of a single work, distils an enormous body of photographic art to present you with images that make you wish you were there. Turn a page, and you will be.
