For National Geographic fans in San Antonio, October is your month.
The Briscoe Western Art Museum opens an exhibition of captivating wildlife photography by renowned photographer Thomas D. Mangelsen on Friday, National Geographic Live returns to the Tobin Center for the Performing Arts on Oct. 2 with adventure filmmaker Bryan Smith, and the Witte Museum opens National Geographic’s Monster Fish: In Search of the Last River Giants exhibition on Oct. 8.
While the Tobin Center show is one night only, the Witte exhibition runs through Jan. 22, and the Briscoe show runs through Jan. 29.
A Life in the Wild
Though Mangelsen’s wildlife images have appeared in many venues, his work has won several awards from National Geographic. His iconic “Catch of the Day” image, a close-up of an Alaskan grizzly bear catching a salmon in its jaws, has been called “one of the most famous and widely-circulated wildlife photographs ever made.”
That image from 1988 is front and center in Thomas D. Mangelsen: A Life in the Wild at the Briscoe Western Art Museum. Mangelsen’s photograph captures remarkable detail, including neck scars from a presumed scrape with another bear.
Mangelsen captures such intense details throughout his body of work, represented in the 40 images chosen by the artist for A Life in the Wild, organized to commemorate 40 years of wildlife photography.
Much of that time has been spent sitting and waiting for what he calls “the decisive moment,” Mangelsen has said in interviews. He once spent 12 to 14 hours per day for 42 days taking pictures of a cougar mother and her cubs in the Jackson Hole National Elk Refuge. His images helped launch an effort to end sport hunting of cougars in the United States.
Those 42 days produced about 500 rolls of film with 36 images per roll, from which only a few images have seen publication. In a video accompanying the Briscoe exhibition, Mangelsen describes his “very intensive editing process,” wherein thousands of shots finally result in “that one image that meets all the criteria for print.”
Now 70 years old, the Nebraska native bought his first Pentax 35 millimeter film camera at age 21 and has since photographed on all seven continents. Locations represented among the 40 images in the exhibition include Denali National Park in Alaska, Hudson’s Bay in Canada, Serengeti National Park in Tanzania, Amboseli National Park in Kenya, South Georgia Island in Antarctica, and the Platte River in Nebraska, where the yearly sandhill crane migration — an annual journey dating back an estimated 10 million years — inspired his enduring love of wildlife.
Visitors to the Briscoe might not catch a glimpse of the busy photographer, however. Mangelsen was unavailable for interviews because he is deep inside Yellowstone National Park tracking a long-term subject: Grizzly 399, called “the most famous bear in the world.”
Tickets for the Briscoe Western Art Museum include admission to Thomas D. Mangelsen: A Life in the Wild. Several Mangelsen books are available in the museum gift shop, including the large-format catalog for A Life in the Wild, available for $90.
Capturing the Impossible
Continuing its run of National Geographic Live events, the Tobin Center for the Performing Arts presents “Capturing the Impossible,” featuring filmmaker Bryan Smith on Oct. 2.
Smith began his environmentally-focused career as an extreme kayaker protesting a hydroelectric dam project in his native British Columbia, Canada. He co-produced The Season online television series documenting nature adventurers and has done field cinematography for Patagonia, the Discovery Network, and the National Geographic Channel — including for the “Monster Fish” series.
Tickets for National Geographic Live are available on the Tobin Center website.
Monster Fish
The National Geographic exhibition Monster Fish: In Search of the Last River Giants opens at the Witte Museum on Oct. 8.
The show brings the Nat Geo television series “Monster Fish” and the work of its host, aquatic ecologist Zeb Hogan, to the museum through large-scale models, images, and interactive exhibits.
A special section of the exhibition assembled by Witte staff highlights “monster fish” found in Texas, including the alligator gar and record-setting examples of paddlefish, largemouth bass, and catfish.
Monster Fish: In Search of the Last River Giants requires special exhibition tickets, available on the Witte Museum website.
