Photographer and conservationist Bryant Austin"s breathtaking photographic project Beautiful Whale is the first of its kind: It chronicles his fearless attempts to reach out to whales as fellow sentient beings. Featuring Austin"s intimate images--some as detailed as a single haunting eye--that result from encounters based on mutual trust, Beautiful Whale captures the grace and intelligence of these magnificent creatures. Austin spent days at a time submerged, motionless, in the waters of remote calving grounds waiting for humpback, sperm, and minke whales to seek him out. As oceanographer Sylvia A. Earle says in her foreword to the book, "As an ambassador from the ocean--and to the ocean--Bryant Austin is not only a source of inspiration. He is cause for hope."