Bryant Austin

I am a photographer known mostly for creating life-size portraits of whales. My more recent work is a study of the sun. I explore the sun’s surface in vivid detail, as viewed through Earth’s varied atmospheric states. Dramatic landscape elements anchor the experience to challenge our perceptions of reality and our place within an infinite void. The process is complex and often requires the use of three telescopes equipped with infrared cameras and a monochrome video camera with scientific filters. This equipment is often backpacked in the Sierras to capture Sun/Earth interactions that occur only a few moments each year.

I study the fall of the sun’s photons on Earth, noting how they concentrate at the solar surface, then incrementally disperse away from the solar disk. I am keen to explore photon interactions on Earth with subjects in close proximity to the sun’s light.

After my father’s death in 2015 and a near death experience of my own a few months later, I made the decision to find a way to create daily. It began with the sun. This new direction unexpectedly led to unfamiliar sensations of presence as if the cosmos was experiencing itself through my form.

The work featured here is from my most recent book entitled “s...

I am a self taught photographer.

"Oceana: Deep Reverence"
Carmel Center for Photographic Art &
Pacific Grove Center for the Arts
Group Show
January 6 to February 28, 2023

"For Life"
Datz Museum of Art
Group Show
Seoul, Korea
March 19 to August 28, 2022

"light + shadow"
Cavallo Point
Sausalito, CA
June 7 to August 31, 2019

"Journey of Transformation"
Datz Museum of Art
Group Show
Seoul, Korea
October 27 to December 30, 2018

"Sizing it Up"
Peabody Essex Museum
Group Show
Salem, Massachusetts
October 10, 2015 to September 16, 2016

"Beautiful Whale"
Australian National Maritime Museum,
USA Gallery
Sydney, Australia
April 11, 2014 to February 1, 2015

"Beautiful Whale"
Tamada Projects
Tokyo, Japan
December, 2010