States of Nature | Studio Edition
Couldn't load pickup availability
Description
What's Included
- Signed hardcover book with dust jacket
- Signed and numbered 8 × 10 in print of Irima 2, a big tusker of Tsavo East
- Slipcase and folio
- Numbered Certificate of Authenticity
- Hand-numbered by the artist (No. 1–200, assigned at fulfillment); the book and print carry the same number
- Ships November 2026 from Texas
About the Studio Edition
Each copy in the Studio Edition is signed and hand-numbered by the artist. This is a numbered edition of 200. Each buyer receives a specific number, inscribed by hand at fulfillment.
The print, Irima 2, is unreleased and was made for this edition only. The print and the book carry the same number, and each comes with a numbered Certificate of Authenticity.
Available exclusively through the artist's studio.
The Print
Tusks that touch the ground.
Irima 2 is a big tusker, the name for an elephant whose tusks are so long they scrape the ground. About 25 are left in the world, and most live in Tsavo.
Tusks like these can weigh more than 50 kilograms each, which is why poachers hunt them. The Tsavo Trust works with the Kenya Wildlife Service to keep these elephants safe. Ground teams and a light aircraft follow them across Tsavo so they can keep roaming free.
In this photograph, he stands beside a tree, ears spread, his tusks reaching the ground. Mital made it in Tsavo East in 2023. It had not been printed or shown before this edition.
Print Information
- Print: Irima 2, Tsavo East, Kenya, 2023
- Image size: 7 × 9 in, on an 8 × 10 in sheet with a half-inch border
- Signed and numbered by the artist; the print and the book carry the same number
- Made for this edition only; unreleased
About the Book
The first images for this book were made eleven years ago.
In between: 13 countries. 34 locations. Five continents. More than 100,000 frames.
States of Nature is not a survey of the world's most beautiful places. It is a sustained inquiry into what the natural world looks like on its own terms: before human civilization, alongside it, and in spite of it. Ancient stromatolites, still growing. Lava fields, still forming. Tsavo's red-dust elephants, still moving through terrain they have crossed for thousands of years. Lion cubs in the Maasai Mara, indifferent to the camera.
Of the 100,000 frames made over eleven years, 180 photographs made this book.
224 pages. 180 full-colour photographs. Printed and bound at Longo, Bolzano, Italy.
With an essay by Phillip Prodger.
About the Essay
Phillip Prodger served as Head of Photographs at the National Portrait Gallery in London, and as founding Curator of Photography at the Peabody Essex Museum. He holds a PhD from the University of Cambridge. His books include An Alternative History of Photography.
His essay for States of Nature, "Seeing with Fresh Eyes," places Patel's work within the long history of nature photography and argues for its significance at this particular moment.
This is not a book about wildlife. It is a book about what was here before us.
The Making
States of Nature went to press on August 12, 2026, in Bolzano, Italy.
That day, six planets aligned at dawn, a total solar eclipse arrived at golden hour, and the Perseid meteor shower peaked after dark under a new moon. In a single day: fire, earth, water, ice: the four chapters of this book, demonstrated simultaneously in the heavens on the morning it was born.
It was never planned to arrive on this day. It simply did.
Perhaps that is the most fitting thing of all. A book about listening to the natural world found its moment when the natural world had the most to say.
Art in Service of the Wild
A portion of proceeds from States of Nature supports Ol Pejeta Conservancy, WildAid, and Tsavo Trust, protecting the species and places that made this work possible.
Mital Patel has worked alongside these organizations for over a decade. The photographs in this book are also the record of that relationship.
About the Artist
Mital Patel is an internationally recognized fine art photographer working across landscape, wildlife, and abstraction. Largely self-taught, his work spans all seven continents and has been exhibited at Christopher Martin Gallery in Dallas and The White Room Gallery in East Hampton. He was named Professional Photographer of the Year by the London Photography Awards in 2025.
States of Nature is his first monograph.
About the Publisher
Hirmer Verlag is a Munich-based publisher of art, photography and architecture books, with a list that also spans painting, sculpture, drawing, fashion and cultural history. States of Nature is distributed by Thames & Hudson in the UK and Europe and by the University of Chicago Press in North America.
Book Information
- Publisher: Hirmer Verlag, Munich
- Distributed by: Thames & Hudson (UK/Europe) · University of Chicago Press (North America)
- Format: Large-format hardcover with dust jacket
- Size: 9.5 × 12 inches
- Pages: 224
- Photographs: 180 full-colour plates
- Printing: Longo, Bolzano, Italy
- Essay: Phillip Prodger, "Seeing with Fresh Eyes"
Shipping Information
Pre-order. Books ship from Texas in November 2026. Shipping is calculated at checkout and paid by the buyer.