Planet Earth: Photography and DVDs

The first photographs of Earth from space were taken on October 24, 1946 – shot at an altitude of 65 miles over the New Mexico desert from a V-2 rocket launched from the White Sands Missile Range. The grainy, black and white photos clearly showed the curvature of the Earth, though from that low altitude only a partial view of the globe was possible.
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These books and DVDs have been chosen to reawaken the sense of wonder we experienced when we first saw Earthrise –- and to remind us how vast and beautiful and fragile is this Earth.

Recommended Books and DVDs on Planet Earth

Africa Flying High
Paolo Novaresio

This handsome, compact volume takes the reader on a memorable trip over Africa, giving you a rare glimpse of its spectacular, diverse landscapes and wildlife. Photographer Novaresio captured unparalleled pictures of animal herds, savannahs, deserts, and deep jungle - more than 550 color photographs in all.
2006, White Star

Amazing Planet (2 DVD Set)
James McKenna, dir.

National Geographic has teamed up with NASA and the US Geological Survey to create a 4-D Planet Earth - an eye-popping CGI time machine that makes it possible to see in seconds what took eons to create. Witness the bumper-car movements of continents; ice ages emerging from the poles and shrinking back; the Himalayas surging upwards; the march of sand dunes swallowing and then uncovering African villages.
2007, National Geographic

Andy Goldsworthy: Touching Nature: Special Edition
William Malpas

Famed sculptor Andy Goldsworthy makes "Earth art" out of, among other materials, stacks of rocks, or stalks tied together, or mud thrown into rivers or poppy petals wrapped around boulders. His art is a sensitive, intuitive response to nature, light, time, growth, the seasons and the Earth.
2007, Crescent Moon Publishing

Antarctica: The Global Warning
Sebastian Copeland

Antarctica's environment today is a microcosm of the world environment's future: as endangered creatures, such as the chinstrap penguins, humpback whales, and albatrosses continue to face extinction, research scientists have concluded that this icy ecosystem serves as a final warning of impending environmental deterioration. Copeland's photographs have captured both the incredible beauty of this continent and the devastation that climate changes have wreaked upon it.
2007, Earth Aware Editions

Archipelago: Portraits of Life in the World's Most Remote Island Sanctuary
David Liittschwager and Susan Middleton

The photographers gained unprecedented access to these protected islands that are otherwise completely off-limits to people. With 300 stunning images, the book illustrates the spectacular diversity of the rare creatures of the remarkable ecosystem of the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands.
2005, National Geographic

Baraka (DVD)
Ron Fricke, dir.

The word baraka means "blessing"; watching this film the viewer is blessed with a dazzling barrage of images that transcend language. Filmed in 24 countries and set to an ever-changing global soundtrack, the movie draws surprising connections between various peoples and the spaces they inhabit.
2001, Mpi Home Video

The Blue Planet and Seas of Life
(5-DVD Special Edition)

Winner of 2 Emmy Awards, The Blue Planet is the definitive exploration of the marine world, chronicling the mysteries of the deep in ways never before imagined. Six and one-half hours of viewing time includes 80 minutes of behind-the-scenes footage.
2007, BBC Warner

The Book of Clouds
John A. Day

See the sky as you never have before! Photographer and scientist John Day introduces the Earth's great skyscape with a spectacular portfolio of pictures, ranging from cottony-soft cumulus clouds to frightening, whirling funnels, as well as a number of optical effects, such as coronas and halos seen in the heavens above. Charts and text help the amateur cloudwatcher make sense of the drama unfolding overhead.
2002, Sterling

A Collaboration with Nature
Andy Goldsworthy

Scottish artist Andy Goldsworthy uses a seemingly infinite array of purely natural materials, from snow and ice to leaves, stone, and twigs in the creation of his one-of-a-kind sculptures. The delicate tensions and balance of his sculptural collaborations encourage a sharpened perception of the natural world. Ultimately the materials used to create each piece returned to their natural state, leaving no trace of the artwork's existence save for the stunning photos in this book.
1990, Harry N. Abrams

The Deep: The Extraordinary Creatures of the Abyss
Claire Nouvian

Only five percent of the sea floor has been mapped, and scientists estimate that there are between ten million and thrity million species in the deep yet to be found by man. The ones that we do know are gloriously bizarre creatures that bear weird names such as Naked Sea Butterflies, Spook Fish, Pig Butt Worms, Glass Head Grenadiers, and Yeti Crabs. This stunning collection of color photos brings these deep-sea denizens alive.
2007, University Of Chicago Press

Earth from Above
Yann Arthus-Bertrand

Ecology aims to give its practitioners an approach to understanding how whole natural systems - for example, watersheds, deserts, and estuaries - work. This remarkable collection of photographs affords its viewers a window into the world's workings, documenting the large-scale impact of human activities upon the earth. We see aerial views of large-scale logging, fans of algae spreading into the Mediterranean Sea, farmers working their fields in Northern India, destroyed Iraqi tanks littering the deserts of Kuwait. A bracing and beautiful book.
2005, Harry N. Abrams

Earth from Above : 365 Days
Yann Arthus-Bertrand

Famed aerial photographer Arthus-Bertrand has joined forces with a dozen conservationists to create a pictorial accounting of the impact of humankind on the planet. With brief essays on sustainable development, climate change, biodiversity, water, and global economics, the striking patterned and colorful aerial compositions reveal the unity of life on earth in all its glorious symmetry and complexity.
2005, Harry N. Abrams

Earth From Space: Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum
Andrew K. Johnston

The revolution in satellite reconnaisance reveals stunning perspectives of the earth in remarkably sharp detail. The photographs in this volume emphasize how humans have altered the earth's surface and atmosphere while revealing the beauty of river deltas, typhoons, erupting volcanoes, and even Vermont's fall colors.
2004, Firefly Books

Earthsong
Bernhard Edmaier

Art meets Earth science in Earthsong, a gallery of spectacular aerial photographs. Reproduced in full color, the patterns of deserts, glaciers, volcanoes and grassland often resemble abstract painting. Quietly acknowledging the effects of global warming, this book hovers above the Earth to reveal the effects of the interconnected forces that continue to shape our planet.
2004, Phaidon Press

Edge of the Earth - Corner of the Sky (DVD)
David Herbig, dir.

Relax to the serene beauty and soothing music of this DVD Digital Art Show collaboration between legendary nature photographer Art Wolfe and Windham Hill recording artist Scott Cossu. Witness the sheer wonder and drama of our miraculous Earth with photos that take you from the Great Bahamas Bank to the icebound Arctic, accompanied by the beautiful and refreshing music of New Age jazz. Bonus CD-ROM with photography notes included.
2005.Performing Arts

The Eternal Sea
Christian Buchet and Philip Plisson

Photographer Plisson honors the sea through his spectacular vistas of ocean and sky as well as coastal landscapes that are fantastic, inviting, and forbidding. The photographs are precise in detail yet painterly in mood. This gorgeous book also delineates with bracing specificity the realities of worsening marine pollution and increasingly imperiled marine life.
2006, Harry N. Abrams

Exploring the Deserts of the Earth (2 DVD set)

Two ambitious filmmakers document their travels on film as they attempt to cross all of the world's deserts on a motorbike in only 900 days. They head first to the Arabian deserts, then to Asia, Australia, South and North America and finally to Africa documenting their experiences of each country's unique culture. Six hours viewing time.
2007, Koch Visiion

Forces of Nature (DVD)

This exciting DVD is filled with incredible footage of nature at its most potent. A powerful image and music-filled journey of discovery that takes you to the very brink of exploding volcanoes, across rupturing earthquake faults to the edge of tornados and more.
2004, National Geographic

Galapagos: The Islands That Changed the World
Paul D. Stewart

This group of volcanic islands lying along the equator in the Pacific are famous for their rare species of fauna and flora. This definitive book describes the geological history of the island group, then turns to human history, describing how Charles Darwin saw these islands as a storehouse of biological riches and triggered a revolution of scientific thought. Magnificent color photographs document the Galapagos' rugged beauty, and portray its wild inhabitants: giant tortoises, iguanas, flightless cormorants, blue-footed boobies, ghost crabs, and more.
2007, Yale University Press

Great Barrier Reef
David Doubilet

Veteran underwater photographer Doubilet has photographed the entire 1250-mile length of Australia's immense and spectacular Great Barrier Reef. This book features 125 remarkable photographs with accompanying essays that capture the complex web of life along Earth's greatest reef.
2002, National Geographic

Hispaniola: A Photographic Journey through Island Biodiversity
Eladio Fernández, Timothy J. Baroni, Brian Farrell, Ricardo García

A short flight from the Florida coast, Hispaniola offers unique opportunities to evolutionary biologists. At 40 million years, Hispaniola is far older than the Galapagos. Its considerable age, along with the diversity of its habitats makes this island one of the most spectacular troves of biota on the planet. This extraordinary richness of species is showcased here in nearly 400 photographs, accompanied by essays by the experts who know them best.  
2007, Belknap Press; Bilingual edition

James Cameron's Aliens of the Deep: Voyages to the Strange World of the Deep Ocean
Joe Macinnis

Acadamy Award-winning film maker, James Cameron, and scientist, Joe Macinnis, collaborate to take readers miles below the sea to hydrothermal vents where super-heated water flows from the earth's crust into the cold deep ocean. These vents are surprising oases of life, unknown until 1970 and still largely unexplored. Stunning photographs of undersea creatures are accompanied by an illuminating text.
2005, National Geographic

Koyaanisqatsi / Powaqqatsi (2 DVD set)
Godfrey Reggio, dir.

These award-winning films present a visual concert of images set to the haunting music of Phillip Glass. Using extensive time-lapse and slow-motion photography the filmmaker is able to show the relationship between types of physical motion, such as the movement of cloud formations and the rolling ocean waves. The films highlight the contrast between Earth's beauty and the suffering that mankind has inflicted upon it.
2002, MGM

Life: A Journey Through Time
Frans Lanting

In the year 2000, world-renowned wildlife photographer Frans Lanting set out to photograph the evolution of life on Earth. The resulting volume is a glorious picture book of the planet, depicting the amazing biodiversity that surrounds us. From crabs to jellyfish, diatoms to vast geological formations, jungles to flowers, monkeys to human embryos, Life is a testament to the magical beauty of life in all its forms.
2006, Taschen

Mother Earth: Through the Eyes of Women Photographers and Writers
Judith Boyce

Editor Boyce has combined the spectacular color photographs of 35 women photographers with the works of writers such as Rachel Carson, Isak Dinesen and Alice Walker to produce a superb anthology celebrating Mother Earth through the perspective of women. The book is divided into five sections: mineral, plant, animal, human, and the realm of oneness where all elements meet. "This book is meant to sharpen your vision, adjust the radar of your heart, and inspire you to look afresh at the world."
2002, Sierra Club Books

Mountain Light: In Search of the Dynamic Landscape
Galen A. Rowell

Rowell is preeminent among photographers of mountains. His creations carry extraordinary visual impact: the affinity for light that marks his personal vision is supported by superb technical achievement. An accomplished climber, he photographs some of the world's most remote landscapes. This book presents 80 of Rowell's favorite photographs, with accompanying descriptions of the circumstances which surrounded the making of each image. Magical.
1995, Sierra Club Books

Mountains from Space: Peaks and Ranges of the Seven Continents
Stefan Dech, Rudiger Glasser, Reinhold Messner and Ralf-Peter Märtin

Using highly specialized, advanced digital satellite imaging - first made possible in 2000 by the Shuttle Radar Topogaphy Mission - this book presents an astounding collection of images of the Earth's mountain ranges. The most majestic peaks on all seven continents are visible as they never would be to the naked eye - in views taken from 500 to 15 miles above the earth that reveal the entire mountain range at once, unobstructed by clouds, haze, and the refraction of light.
2005, Harry N. Abrams

Mountains: Masterworks of the Living Earth
Paul Tapponier and Kevin Kling

Keepers of legend, mountains are regarded with awe and admiration by every culture. In this fascinating book, a geologist and a nature photographer provide a tour of the world's most spectacular mountain ranges, revealing their origins and tracing their natural histories. The book's incisive text reveals the secrets of a mountain's birth, its endurance against erosive elements, and its march towards an inevitable demise. Illustrated with breathtaking photographs.
2006, Harry N. Abrams

National Geographic Almanac of Geography

This valuable reference work provides an answer for every geographic question, from the history of map making to the migration of people around the world to topics such as environmental hazards and cultural identity. Over 200 illustrations.
2005, National Geographic

The Natural World
Thomas D. Mangelsen and Jane Goodall

Master nature photographer Mangelsen's images encompass Earth's iconic wild places while exposing some of the lesser-known landscapes of our planet. The photographs span six continents and range from the northern - to the southern-most extremes of the Earth, and capturing a range of wonders - from the wildebeest migration of the Serengeti, to polar bears on the stark landscape of Hudson Bay.
2007, Channel Photographics

North America the Beautiful
Galen Rowell

In this awe-inspiring volume, award-winning nature photographer Galen Rowell takes us on an unforgettable photographic tour of North America, evoking the remarkable diversity of this continent's varied ecosystems. Through Rowell's inspired lens, we see the gorgeous fluted walls of Antelope Canyon in Arizona; the full moon sinking behind the craggy peaks of the Sierra Nevada; an Alaskan brown bear poised to snap up an airborne salmon; and a flock of California seagulls gilded by the rays of the setting sun.
2006, White Star

Ocean
Robert Dinwiddie

This magnificient volume encourages eyes, mind and spirit to attend more closely to the fragile otherworld of the ocean. Crafted by devoted scientists and visual artists, Ocean offers page after page of stunning images and vital information.  
2006, DK ADULT

Oceans
Sue Hostetler, Jean-Michel Cousteau, Vicki Goldberg and Robert Redford

To pay tribute to the beauty of the ocean and to celebrate the artists that have captured its many extraordinary aspects, photography editor Hostetler has compiled work from 80 of the most prominent contemporary photographers. This unique and stunning volume features contributions by renowned photography critic Vicki Goldberg and environmentalists Jean-Michel Cousteau and Robert Redford.
2002, Rizzoli International

One Planet: A Celebration of Biodiversity
Nicolas Hulot

Text and photographs of eight ecosystems - oceans, deserts, grasslands, polar regions, wetlands, mountains, forests, and cities - portray the beauty of the natural world as well as images of its destruction. This splendid and bracing global overview summons up a renewed sense of connection and commitment to the planet.  
2006, Harry N. Abrams

Orbit: NASA Astronauts Photograph the Earth
Jay Apt, Michael Helfert and Justin Wilkinson

This awe-inspiring collection of photograhs gives those of us stuck on Earth a glimpse of what our home planet looks like from the window of a spacecraft. All the continents are shown, as well as weather events, the aurora borealis, and the visible effects of anthropogenic environmental change - deforestation and desertification chief among them. Take a sobering look at our lovely planet and realize how small and fragile it really is.
2003, National Geographic

Over the Mountains: An Aerial View of Geology
Michael Collier

The full-color photos in this volume are uniformly stunning and illustrate how mountains form, evolve, deteriorate and die. Author Collier covers the fundamentals of mountain geology: rock types, plate tectonics, erosion, fault zones, alluvial fans, subduction and volcanoes, employing his photographs to illustrate these principles.
2007, Mikaya Press

Pacific Explorations with Jacques Cousteau
(6 DVD Set)
Joe Thompson, dir.

Jacques Cousteau is television's most celebrated maker and presenter of documentaries about the underwater world. This 6 DVD gift set includes 12 programs from Cousteau's multiple exploration journeys throughout the Pacific region, including Australia, New Zealand and Papua New Guinea.
2005, Warner Home Video

Pacific Islands: Myths and Wonders of the Southern Seas
Marco Moretti

Stories and magnificent images trace the roots of the first Western navigators among the wonders of the Southern seas. The reader visits blue lagoons, volcanic islands covered with steaming jungles, and strips of white sand nestled between banks of coral. Covers the entire region from Hawaii to Tahiti, Samoa, New Guinea, New Zealand and Australia.
2004, White Star

Passage
Andy Goldsworthy

Sculptor Goldsworthy is an artist who works with nature in nature. He creates astonishingly subtle, emphemeral, seemingly impossible, and elegantly mysterious works out of stone, sticks, leaves, stalks, ice, and sand, constructions vulnerable to sun, wind, storms, tides, and time. Magical and exquisite, Goldsworthy's sculptures move us to look more carefully at the world around us and consider more deeply our place within the fine mesh of life.
2004, Harry N. Abrams

Patterns Of The Earth
Bernhard Edmaier and Angelika Jung-Huttl

This photographic collection features dazzling pictures of natural phenomena such as volcanoes, glaciers, coral reefs, dunes, rivers, craters, canyons and salt flats, revealing the beauty of the dwindling unspoiled areas of our planet. Edmaier's photographs are taken from as high as 20,000 feet, exposing natural patterns and documenting the geological processes at work.
2007, Phaidon Press

Planet Earth & The Blue Planet Seas of Life
(Special Collector's Edition - 10 DVD Set)
Alastair Fothergill, producer

BBC natural history producer Alastair Fothergill spent the last ten years producing two of the most stunningly beautiful series ever created. Seas of Life is the definitive exploration of the marine world, chronicling the mysteries of the deep, coastline populations, sea mammals, tidal and climatic influences, and the complete biological system that revolves around the world's oceans. Planet Earth uses high definition photography and revolutionary ultra-high speed cameras to produce the ultimate portrait of our planet - capturing rare action, impossible locations and intimate moments with our planet's best loved, wildest and most elusive creatures. Sixteen hours of viewing time, including many extra features.
2007, BBC Warner

Planet Earth: As You've Never Seen It Before
Alastair Fothergill

This gorgeous coffee-table book takes you on a kaleidoscopic tour of the flora, fauna and natural history of the Earth's poles, forests, plains, deserts, mountains and oceans. Jaw-dropping photographs reveal the astonishing variety of geology and life around the globe, from Antarctica to the Andes Mountains, the Gobi Desert, the Ethiopian Highlands, the caves of Mexico, Siberia's Lake Baikal and the Ganges Rivera Delta. This is the companion volume to the BBC series Planet Earth.
2007, University of California Press

Planet Earth - The Complete BBC Series (5 DVD set)
David Attenborough

Planet Earth is quite simply the greatest nature/wildlife series ever produced. This astonishing 11-part BBC series is brilliantly narrated by Sir David Attenborough and sensibly organized so that each episode covers a specific geographical region until the entire planet has been magnificently represented by the most astonishing sights and sounds you'll ever experience from the comforts of home. The final DVD discusses issues of conservation, global warming and the protection of delicate ecosystems. The last word from Sir David in the closing episode: "We can now destroy or we can cherish - the choice is ours."
2007, BBC Warner

Planet Earth: The Making of an Epic Series
David Nicolson-Lord

This book tells the dramatic tale of the effort that went into producing the BBC series Planet Earth. Producers and camera crews traveled to every corner of the world, from the highest mountains to the lowest depths, using every kind of craft and technololgical wizardry imaginable, from helicopters and submersibles to satellites and remote cameras, to capture the amazing images and footage shown in Planet Earth.
2007, BBC Books

Planet Ocean: Voyage to the Heart of the Marine Realm
Laurent Ballesta and Pierre Descamp

Spanning the vast range of Earth's marine environments, from Greenland to the Polynesian Islands, Planet Ocean reveals hidden landscapes of unsurpassed beauty and awe. With engaging text and more than 400 photographs Ballesta and Descamp lead readers on a compelling voyage of discovery. More than 25 essays from leading scientists highlight topics such as aquaculture and global warming, helping readers understand the threats that weigh on the oceans and why we must protect the incredible diversity of plants and animals there.
2007, National Geographic

Quarries
Edward Burtynsky

Celebrated photographer Burtynsky here documents the world's major quarries - in Canada, Italy, China, Spain, Portugal, India and America. Quarries are a crucial source for material that goes into the buildings we construct as well as tangible evidence of our ongoing dependence on the Earth's resources. Somewhere a building is being created while landscape is being destroyed. Burtynsky's images of these plundered landscapes are simultaneously beautiful and disquieting.
2007, Steidl

Rainforest
Thomas Marent

In this evocative work of dazzling photographs, each inhabitant of the rainforest 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. An invaluable survey of the rainforest's abundance and diversity of life.  
2006, DK ADULT

Rivers & Tides (DVD)
Thomas Riedelsheimer, dir.

This documentary focuses on artist Andy Goldsworthy, a sculptor whose medium is nature itself and whose preferred studio is the outdoors, particularly where water forever flows, rises, and/or retreats. The soft-spoken artist is seen hard at work making ephemeral sculptures out of bits of ice in the trees, or building tall, mysterious cones from loose rock, which stand like spiritual sentinels in forests and on shorelines, overgrown by plants or swallowed daily by high tides. A mesmerizing, poetic and contemplative portrait of this renowned sculptor.
2004, NEW VIDEO GROUP

Rivers of America
Tim Palmer

The author presents 200 awe-inspiring photographs of American rivers in all seasons and moods in every region of the country. Deliberately focusing on natural and unspoiled waterways, Palmer has taken breath-taking shots that capture the motion, power, and vitality of flowing water as well as framing the grace of the grasses, trees, and animals that depend on streams great and small. A wonderful journey across America.
2006, Harry N. Abrams

Through The Eyes Of The Condor: An Aerial Vision of Latin America
Robert B. Haas

This is a breath-taking tour of the immense and varied wilderness of Latin America. In magnificent and exquisite composition, award-winning aerial photographer Robert B. Haas captures the majesty of the Amazon, the fickleness of rare wildlife in Patagonia, and the incredible topography of untouched lands.
2007, National Geographic