Elements
Life in Balance
The Story Behind The Collection
Elements: Life in Balance is built on a simple idea: context is half the story. Rather than isolating wildlife from its surroundings, the collection explores the relationship between animals and the elemental forces that shape their lives. From earth and water to wind, light, and fire, each image celebrates the delicate balance between subject and environment.
Within the forces that
shape it
Wildlife
Where context
is half the story
A study of BALANCE
between life and landscape, presence and space, survival and fragility.
“Step back and allow the landscape to become part of the subject. Earth, water, wind, fire, and light are not background details; they are forces that shape behaviour, survival, movement, and mood.”
— Alex Wood
Elements: Life in Balance is built on a simple belief: context is half the story. Rather than isolating wildlife from its surroundings, the collection explores the relationship between animals and the elemental forces that shape their lives.
Across earth, water, wind, fire, and light, each image considers the animal not as a separate figure, but as part of a greater natural system. Dust and clouds become atmosphere. Water becomes reflection and refuge. Wind gives movement to grass, mane, feather, and cloud. Fire suggests heat, renewal, danger, and transformation. Light becomes the final element - revealing form, creating mood, and binding subject to place.
This approach asks for a different kind of looking. The animal remains central, but the surrounding world carries equal weight. A figure may be small within the frame, held by a vast landscape. A body may emerge from dust, disappear into water, or be reduced to silhouette against a dramatic sky. In each case, the environment is not decoration. It is part of the story.
The collection is a meditation on balance: between presence and space, subject and setting, survival and fragility. It celebrates wildlife not simply for its beauty or rarity, but for its belonging. Ultimately, every creature is shaped by the forces around it, and in turn they become tied to the landscape itself.
BEHIND the SCENES
23 days
3 Massai Trackers
7 Tuskers Found
Art for
WIldlife
15% of profits from every Land of Icons print are donated to the David Shepherd Wildlife Foundation, helping fund anti-poaching teams, community conservation, and the protection of endangered wildlife.
Shop The Collection
Okavango Delta, Botswana, 2024
IMAGE SPECIFICATIONS
✓ Limited Edition
✓ Archival Pigment Print
✓ Signed and editioned by Alex
✓ Certificate of Authenticity included
✓ 15% to Conservation
Story Behind The Image
A lone lioness, resting high above the floodplain on the outstretched arm of a great tree, her form catching the last warmth of an Okavango sky as it dissolves from blue into rose.
I am drawn, always, to stillness over spectacle. This image asks for nothing — no chase, no roar, no urgency — only presence. The lioness is suspended between two worlds: the fading day and the coming night, the ground below and the sky above, wildness and repose. In the Delta, where water and woodland exist in constant negotiation, lions have learned to move vertically as well as horizontally, climbing not from necessity alone but, it seems, for the simple clarity that height provides. She has found hers.
I chose to step back with the lens rather than move closer — to let the tree become her architecture, the sky her backdrop, the land beneath her a quiet witness. The bare branches, stripped of leaf and ornament, read almost as line work against the color-washed sky, transforming the frame into something closer to portraiture than documentation. And yet her eyes remain open. Alert. Watching something we cannot see.
Print Sizes & Editions
All prints are produced with archival pigment inks on Hahnemühle FineArt paper for museum-grade longevity and exceptional colour accuracy. Standard presentation includes a white window mount, a dark tulipwood frame, and anti-reflective (AR) glass. If you require a different format or finish, please get in touch via the enquiry form.
20 " x RIP (Small) edition of 50
30 " x RIP (Medium) edition of 25
40 " x RIP (Large) edition of 25
60 " x RIP (X Large) edition of 12
Shipping & Returns
Delivery is from the United Kingdom and is included free with the purchase of all prints, including framed. Delivery is by FedEx, DHL, UPS, or DPD depending on location. Once your order is shipped you will receive an email with your tracking number. Please allow up to two weeks to fulfil your order plus one week for delivery.
Each piece is made to order, and as a result, all orders are final once placed. Packaging and protective wrapping are included.
Conservation Impact
15% of profits from every Land of Icons print are donated to the David Shepherd Wildlife Foundation, helping fund anti-poaching teams, community conservation, and the protection of endangered wildlife.