Norbert Wu Photography

Just one more day till I'm taking off for the British Virgin Islands for spring break. I'm going to be spending a week on a catamaran with my family and some family friends for spring break, and I want to try and post some stuff before I take off. I had a meeting today with Dr. Peter Brink, chair of the physiology and biophysics department at Stony Brook (more on that meeting later) who among other things, is hosting photographer Norbert Wu at Stony Brook on April 2nd. I had never heard of Mr. Wu's work before, but after checking out some of his stuff (click on the title of this post, or check your required reading list to the right) I was blown away.  Seeing as how I'm going to be getting into photography heavily next year, I set up a personal meeting with Mr. Wu on April 2nd.  Please, anyone on Long Island, let me know if you want to meet this guy or come to his presentation, I have a feeling it's going to be spectacular.  If you spend a few minutes going through Mr. Wu's work, I can almost guarantee you'll find a photo you're familiar with.  The volume of his work is so prodigious that it's inevitable.

Unfortunately Mr. Wu has a strict policy on reproducing his works, so I can't include any of his pictures here, but I spent a little time going through his website and picked out some shots and albums I thought were pretty interesting.  The first shot that really struck me was this picture of a dynamited grouper from his Borneo album.  The incredible size of the fish struck me write away, quickly followed by the senseless of its death, and the wonder and compassion in the eyes of the children.  Kind of a sad but really impressive photography.

I also really liked some pictures of a cave called Turtle Tomb in Borneo.  Apparently this cave system is so vast and maze like that sea turtles swim in and drown before they can find their way out.  The idea that sea turtles get lost in caves and drown simply never occurred to me.

I'm not sure why I'm so fixated on tragic pictures today, but the last album keeps with that theme.  It's called "Mattanza (The Killing)", some of you may have heard about this before.  It's a ritual slaughtering of tuna that takes place every year near Sardinia in the Mediterranean.  The tradition apparently dates back 1200 years.  Fisherman set up nets in a narrow channel in the migratory route of critically endangered Giant Bluefin Tuna (Thunnus thynnus), slaughtering every single fish that tries to migrate through the channel.  The photography is incredible, and some of the images are quite disturbing.  It's hard to imagine killing an animal like this.

It's definitely worth spending some time looking at some of the amazing images on Mr. Wu's site.  It would be great to see what other people find in his albums.