“Vanishing” Offers Last Chance To See

It’s a split-second full of energy, caught with the click of a camera — two zebras running at a full gallop, the first one right behind the second, hot on its tail. The zebra giving chase extends its neck, opens its mouth, and bares its teeth, as if to bite.

We don’t know the context. How long did the chase last? Did the bite actually happen? What was the cause? What we do know is both that it’s a far cry from the static portraits of zebras we’ve seen a million times over, or from zebras the vast majority of us see only in zoos, grazing, docile, tails switching. These zebras are doing something else entirely, and photographers Penrhyn and Rod Cook of PenRod Studio are showing us their lives — lives that are in danger.

“Vanishing II” — up now at Kehler Liddell Gallery in Westville — has an overtly environmental focus to it. The Cooks took the photographs on a trip to Kenya, where they spent time taking pictures on ​“savanna land that is hope to some of the most spectacular species on earth.”

The trip also infused urgency into the photographers’ work. ​“The loss of African wildlife is a tragedy with broad and deep impact,” they write in an accompanying note to the exhibit. ​“Scientists predict that in 50 years’ time if we don’t spend more time thinking and acting differently in regards to conservation, species we know and love will be driven to extinction. If we continue to damage the planet at our current rate, humans could very well be one of those beloved species.”

“Thinking that we are somehow separate from the rest of the ecosystem is self destructive hubris of the first order,” they conclude. ​“What we are doing to our planet and, by direct association, to the magical creatures on this continent brings us nothing but shame.”

With these sharp words, the Cooks plunge into a host of complicated debates about our relationship to other animals and what it means for conservation and broader environmental efforts. There are those who argue that the best way to protect animals is to leave them alone altogether, and there are those who argue that traveling to visit them is a key way to become more invested in protecting them and the places where they live. Nested in that argument is a broader one abut who does and does not have the luxuries of time and money to be able to make trips to faraway places. Some point out the irony of burning thousands of gallons in airplane fuel to make possible voyages in the name of conservation. Some might further argue that zoos solve this problem by allowing us to see animals from far away, getting us to care about them without having to travel there. Then others argue that zoos are essentially inhumane, keeping animals in captivity for our entertainment as much as our education. Then the first group might argue back that zoos are crucial to conservation in nurturing species that are on the verge of extinction, especially due to poaching.

Amid these fraught conversations, the Cooks show what is gained by going to where the animals are rather than going to a zoo, as their images often portray their subjects at their most active, doing things we might rarely get to see them doing in captivity.

The Cooks also show their technical strengths as photographers as they convey a sense of the animals’ breathtaking agility and power. The photographs are more than an argument for travel; in a broader sense, they’re a call to action: leaving the house, getting out and doing something, maybe even putting yourself in harm’s way a little bit.

Meanwhile, the way the photographs have rendered the images makes an argument for doing something sooner rather than later, before it’s too late. The Cooks’ trip to Kenya was relatively recent, but the treatment makes the images seem decades old. It’s a poignant way of showing that time is flying, that environmental changes are happening faster that we want them to, that waiting a year to act may be like waiting a decade. The format of the photographs is also a warning, hearkening to the images we have of animals are that are already long extinct — like the dodo or the passenger pigeon — as well to those famous images of men standing proudly atop piles of buffalo skulls, the product of expeditions like the one the Cooks took, except that the hunters brought guns as well as cameras, and still do.

In ​“Vanishing II,” the Cooks show that they came by their stances on conservation and environmental action through travel and experience. Thanks to their skill as photographers, we don’t have to leave New Haven to get the message.

“Vanishing II” runs at Kehler Liddell Gallery, 873 Whalley Ave., through Mar. 17. Click here for hours and more information.