Spirit of the Wild opening, Birmingham - 22 September 2005 - Andy Mabbett - 11 CROP

Steve Bloom (born 1953) is a South African photographer and writer. Son of journalist, novelist, and political activist

Harry Bloom Harry Saul Bloom (1 January 1913 – 28 July 1981) was a South African journalist, novelist, activist and lecturer. Early life and career Solomon Harris Bloom was born into a Jewish South African family. He was educated at the University of the W ...

, he is best known for his photography books and essays as well as his large scale outdoor exhibitions called ''Spirit of the Wild''.

Early life

Bloom was born in Johannesburg, South Africa.

Career

Bloom's early interest in photography was inspired by the pictures in ''

Life Life is a quality that distinguishes matter that has biological processes, such as signaling and self-sustaining processes, from that which does not, and is defined by the capacity for growth, reaction to stimuli, metabolism, energ ...

'' magazine. In 1972 he trained as a gravure printer, and took portraits of people living under the

Apartheid Apartheid (, especially South African English: , ; , "aparthood") was a system of institutionalised racial segregation that existed in South Africa and South West Africa (now Namibia) from 1948 to the early 1990s. Apartheid was ...

system. In 1977 he travelled to England where some of the pictures were published and exhibited internationally by The International Defence and Aid Fund. For several years he worked in graphic arts, and in 1999 was jointly responsible for the implementation of the Addison designs for the official posters for the summer

Olympic Games The modern Olympic Games or Olympics (french: link=no, Jeux olympiques) are the leading international sporting events featuring summer and winter sports competitions in which thousands of athletes from around the world participate in a var ...

in Barcelona, 1992. Bloom began to photograph wildlife in 1993 while on vacation in South Africa. In 1996 he devoted all his time to wildlife photography and spent the following two years working on his first book, ''In Praise of Primates'', which was published in ten languages. In 2004 ''Untamed'', an oversize book that features animals from all the world's continents, was published in ten language editions for its first printing, and in 2006 he published two monographs: ''Elephant!'' and ''Spirit of the Wild''. In 2006 he returned to photographing people. ''Living Africa'', published in 2008, is a body of photographs covering several African countries, mixing photographs of

wildlife Wildlife refers to domestication, undomesticated animal species (biology), species, but has come to include all organisms that grow or live wilderness, wild in an area without being species, introduced by humans. Wildlife was also synonymous ...

, remote tribal groups and people in cities, including gold miners 3 km underground. Bloom's second book on Africa, ''Trading Places – The Merchants of Nairobi'', features subsistence shopkeepers in the suburbs of

Nairobi Nairobi ( ) is the capital and largest city of Kenya. The name is derived from the Maasai phrase ''Enkare Nairobi'', which translates to "place of cool waters", a reference to the Nairobi River which flows through the city. The city proper ha ...

, including

Kibera Kibera (Kinubi: ''Forest'' or ''Jungle'') is a division of Nairobi Area, Kenya, and neighbourhood of the city of Nairobi, from the city centre. Kibera is the largest slum in Nairobi, and the largest urban slum in Africa.http://www.dominionpa ...

. He has also published several children's books including ''My Big Cats Journal'' (Thames & Hudson), ''My Favourite Animal Families'' (Thames & Hudson) and ''Les animaux racontés aux enfants'' (Editions de la Martinière Jeunesse). By 2010, Bloom had produced eleven city centre outdoor exhibitions called ''Spirit of the Wild'', each consisting of up to 100 large format weather-sealed prints. Free and usually open to the public 24 hours a day, the theme of the exhibitions was to engender awareness of habitat encroachment and global warming. The inaugural exhibition, in

Birmingham Birmingham ( ) is a city and metropolitan borough in the metropolitan county of West Midlands in England. It is the second-largest city in the United Kingdom with a population of 1.145 million in the city proper, 2.92 million in the West ...

, England, ran for eleven months in

Centenary Square Centenary Square is a public square on the north side of Broad Street in Birmingham, England, named in 1989 to commemorate the centenary of Birmingham achieving city status. The area was an industrial area of small workshops and canal wharves ...

. Further exhibitions followed in Copenhagen, Leeds, Amsterdam, Stockholm, Moscow, Dublin, Oslo, Stavanger, Barcelona, Edinburgh, Tokyo and Abbeville. The Copenhagen exhibition opened on 16 May 2006 and was visited by 1,019,028 people during the first three months. In June 2012 the London Festival of PhotographyLondon Festival of Photography http://www.lfph.org/diary/beneath-the-surface featured his exhibition, ''Beneath the Surface: South Africa in the 1970s'' at ''

The Guardian ''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'', and changed its name in 1959. Along with its sister papers ''The Observer'' and ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardian'' is part of the Gu ...

s gallery in London. The exhibition showed his early work in apartheid South Africa, portraying a critical time in that country's history when widescale protests against apartheid took hold.

Publications

*''Trading Places – The Merchants of Nairobi.'' Thames & Hudson, 2009. . *''Living Africa.'' Thames & Hudson, 2008. . *''Untamed.'' Abrams. Paperback Compact edition 2008. . *''Spirit of the Wild.'' Thames & Hudson, 2006. *''Elephant!.'' Thames & Hudson, 2006. . *''Spirit of the Wild.'' Self-published. Exhibition edition. *''Untamed''. **''Untamed''. Hardback. 2004. Harry N. Abrams. . **Martinière, ''Animal'', . French-language version. **''Wilde Tiere''. Knesebeck. . German-language version. **''Insubmissos''. Afrontamento. . Portuguese-language version. **''Állatok''. Alexandra. . Hungarian-language version. **''Gyvûnai''. Alma Litera. . Lithuanian-language version. **''Salvajes''. Lunwerg. . Spanish-language version. **''Dieren''. Lannoo. . Flemish / Dutch-language version. **Mondadori, ''Omaggio Agli Animali,'' . Italian-language version. **''Art Rodnik.'' Russian-language version. *''In Praise of Primates.'' Könemann, 1999. . *''Elephants: A Book for Children.'' **''Elephants: A Book for Children.'' Thames & Hudson. Text by

David Henry Wilson David Henry Wilson (born 1937, in London) is an English writer. As an author he is best known for his children's stories such as the '' Jeremy James'' series. Wilson has also had a number of plays produced in the United Kingdom, both for childr ...

. . **English USA Paperback / Book Fair Safari Scholastic. **''Mein Groβes Buch der Elefanten'' Knesebeck. German-language version. **''El pequeno gran libro de los elefantes''. Oniro, 2008. Spanish-language version. **''Cartea cu elefanti''. Editura Art, 2008. Romanian-language version. **''Elefántkönyv''. Athenaeum, 2008. Hungarian-language version. **''Olifanten – een boek voor kindern''. Atrium. Dutch-language version. **''Les Éléphants''. Martinière Jeunesse, 2007. *''My Favourite Animal Families.'' **''My Favourite Animal Families.'' UK and USA: Thames & Hudson, 2010. Text by David Henry Wilson. **''Mein Grosses Buch de Tierfamilien''. Knesebeck, 2010. German-language version. **''Legkedvesebb állataim''. Athenaeum, 2010. Hungarian-language version. **Martinière Jeunesse, Spring 2011. French-language version. **''Suloisimmat eläinperheet''. Karisto Oy, 2011. . Finnish-language version. *''Portraits d'animaux. Les ours.'' **''Portraits d'animaux. Les ours.'' Martinière Jeunesse, 2010. . French-language version. **Italian-language version. Hippocampo. *''Untamed Animals of the World.'' Children's Edition. **UK: Abrams, ; USA: Abrams, . **Lannoo. . Dutch-language version. **Martinière. . French-language version. **L'ippocampo. . Italian-language version. **Canada: Hurtubise. . French-language version. **Knesebeck. . German-language version. *''A La Découverte des Animaux.'' Martinière Jeunesse, 2011. . *''My Big Cats Journal.'' Thames & Hudson. 2012. . *''My Polar Journal.'' Thames & Hudson. 2012. . *''Les animaux racontés aux enfants.'' Martinière Jeunesse. .

References

General references

*"Born to be Wild," Rebecca Ley, interview, The Times Magazine, 28 October 2006 *

Photo District News ''Photo District News'' (or ''PDN'') was an American monthly trade publication for professional photographers. ''PDN'' was first published in 1980. The publication took its name from New York City's photo district, an area of photo businesses tha ...

(USA), Diane Smyth, interview, June 2008 *"The Big Interview", ''Professional Photographer Magazine,'' December 2012

External links