African buffalo (Syncerus caffer), Amboseli National Park, Kenya. (Migrations - Wildlife in Motion/Art Wolfe)

From African buffalo in Kenya, to emperor penguins in Antarctica, to monarch butterflies in Mexico, Art Wolfe, 64, traveled the world to photograph fascinating animal migrations for his book “Migrations – Wildlife in Motion.”

A photographer for decades, Wolfe travels nine months out of the year and estimates that he has taken around two million photos throughout his career. As the son of commercial artists with a background in the arts himself, his photography has been heavily influenced by both artistic and journalistic styles, he says, and his migration images are no different.

“I have always been a huge fan of Dutch artist M. C. Esher,” Art Wolfe told weather.com. “He really influenced me on how I perceived positive and negative space. Early on, I decided that I would try to emulate Escher’s wildlife mosaics through photographs.”

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Weather plays a big role in Wolfe’s photography, dictating when, where and how he travels to see these incredible migration matters.

“I plan my trips meticulously,” he said. “Rarely has the weather been so bad on a trip that I have been completely stymied. High winds, rains, blizzards – anything that gets your camera wet, makes it shake, or that blocks your view – are the worst. But if you are a professional, you won’t let bad weather stop you; while it can be challenging, it can make for drama as well.”

In fact, one of Wolfe's most memorable photographing experiences involved dramatic weather. In 1992, he was a part of the first expedition of professional photographers to photograph emperor penguins in Antarctica, as up until then, researchers took most of the photos of the birds. His journey to get there, though, was not as easy one. He was stuck in Chile for 11 days waiting for the weather to clear enough for travel. Even then, they had to fly through heavy winds to the base of the Ellsworth Mountains. They then searched the Weddell Sea by air for a colony of penguins on the sea ice, but when they found the colony, the weather turned worse and they had to hunker down for days in a camp before it was safe to venture out.

“[When] the silence came, I stuck my head out of the tent and for the first time in days, I saw the sun shining through a break in the clouds,” he recounted of the experience. “I grabbed my equipment and half ran, half hiked for over a mile to where I thought we had seen the colony from the air. This act was absolute foolishness – the weather could have easily closed in again and I would have been separated from camp and very likely died, [but] luck staid on my side.” He was able to spend three hours photographing the penguins.

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The first edition of ‘Migrations’ was published in 1994, but the new edition is heavily revised and updated, featuring 80 percent new photos by Wolfe showing the stunning natural patterns created by wildlife. The new edition is available through Art Wolfe’s online store. He is also leading a photography tour this July in Katmai National Park, where he and eight participants can photograph the brown bears and migrating sockeye salmon.

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