Extreme Images

5 primary works

Flipping Brilliant

by Jonathan Chester

Published 20 October 2008

Award-winning nature photographer Jonathan Chester captures the essence of the Antarctic's most popular residents to illustrate the similarities between penguins' lives and our own. Patrick Regan's clever narrative offers surprising insights and humorously entertaining life lessons.

The appeal of penguins is undeniable and universal. And we can learn a lot from these fat, funny birds.

To Love Is to Fly

by Jonathan Chester

Published 1 May 2009

When we love someone, we reach another plane of existence-we truly learn to fly. This original tale of love's journey is illustrated and enlivened by stunning photos of those irresistible and entertaining tuxedo-clad birds, the various penguin species at the bottom of our planet.

Stay Cool

by Jonathan Chester

Published 14 September 2010

What does it mean to be cool? The quality has always been hard to define, but easy to identify. James Dean. Miles Davis. They were cool. Steve McQueen riding a motorcycle. Very cool. To that list, you can now add another towering paragon of cool: the mighty polar bear.

In Stay Cool, award-winning polar photographer Jonathan Chester and writer Patrick Regan reveal the uncanny life lessons to be learned from polar bears, those imposing but endlessly appealing kings of the Arctic.

Pithy, clever, and surprisingly heart-warming, Stay Coolillustrates that these wild creatures with a strong sense of self and the ability to rely on their instincts have something useful to teach us all, making this keepsake book a great gift for people of all ages.

My Unflappable Mom

by Jonathan Chester

Published 12 March 2013

A photographic penguin-filled ode to mom arriving just in time for Mother's Day from the successful team who created Flipping Brilliant and other top-selling gift books.

Jonathan Chester and Patrick Regan's My Unflappable Mom is a loving tribute to "the most rare of birds--the incredible, unflappable mom." You know the type. Band-Aids. Car pools. Freshly baked cookies. The 5th grade scale model of Mt. Vesuvius she helped sculpt out of papier-mache--complete with pyrotechnics. Chester's striking and intimate nature photographs of tuxedoed penguins and their young beautifully illustrate Regan's charming verse that honors those incredible, unflappable moms who nurture and instill a spirit of adventure and independence in their young.

While it's a mom's job to be ever watchful, fiercely protective, and deeply engaged in her children's lives, it's also a mom's job to let go--to send her young into the big scary world--whether that means walking away without looking back on the first day of kindergarten or nudging them gently out of the nest as young adults. In My Unflappable Mom, Chester and Regan celebrate the relationship between mother and child while praising mom for being the rare bird that she is--and that's definitely something to flap about.

Zen Penguins

by Jonathan Chester

Published 12 January 2016

"The obstacle is the path." "Live the life in front of you." "Be Still. Stay Chill." What better creature to teach us to live in the moment and be flexible and chill out (so we won't flip out!) than the biped birds at the bottom of the earth? Penguins are intuitive, practical, and cooperative; they naturally know the art of keeping chill. Jonathan Chester's renowned penguin photography whimsically illustrates the sage Zen wisdom presented here in every enlightened spread.
With their preternatural composure, it's easy to imagine penguins as little Zen masters. They are patient, tolerant, aware of their surroundings, and live in the moment...all tenets of the Zen philosophy. A penguin's life is not an easy life, and yet the Zen masters of the Antarctic waddle on. What can they teach us? As this little book shows, quite a lot actually.
"To endow animals with human emotions has long been a scientific taboo. But if we do not, we risk missing something fundamental, about both animals and us."-Frans de Waal