Frans Lanting

Biodiversity starts in the distant past and it points toward the future. ”

My wife says that I become different once I start to work with animals. My movements become different, my mood is different. It involves letting everything fall behind you, becoming intuitive in your dealings with wild creatures in a way that bypasses reason. Sometimes it's more like a dance than anything else. ”

A lion is not a lion is not a lion. As individuals, as mates, as members of a society, they're all very different. ”

Nature's my muse and it's been my passion. ”

Life is a force in its own right. It is a new element. And it has altered the Earth. It covers Earth like a skin. ”

Water is the key to life, but in frozen form, it is a latent force. And when it vanishes, Earth becomes Mars. ”

Life needs a membrane to contain itself so it can replicate and mutate. ”

I became interested in photography during my first visit to the United States. I was a student at a university in Holland. I was overwhelmed by the beauty of the American West. That was when I learned about the tradition of nature in American photography. ”

I want to interpret the natural world and our links to it. It's driven by the belief of many world-class scientists that we're in the midst of an extinction crisis... This time it's us that's doing it. ”

The Galapagos Islands provide a window on time. In a geologic sense, the islands are young, yet they appear ancient. ”