New book celebrates nature's stunning patterns

6 May 2026

Australian photographer and conservationist Jon McCormack has released a new monograph, Patterns: Art of the Natural World, which he describes as a global study of the geometric systems that shape landscapes and ecosystems across the planet.

Landscape Photograph, Iceland, 2023As glaciers melt in southern Iceland, ice caves are born—temporary wonderlands of architecture and color. They exist only briefly, shaped and erased as the glaciers retreat by more than fifty meters each year. This cave, deep within the Vatnajökull glacier, was flash-flooded, and the cold was so intense that air bubbles froze into delicate rings across the cave floor with each ring measuring between one and three inches in diameter. Moving through the cave felt like crossing the finely marbled floors of an ancient church, where time, silence, and fragility are etched into every surface. — Landscape Photograph, Iceland, 2023 As glaciers melt in southern Iceland, ice caves are born—temporary wonderlands of architecture and color. They exist only briefly, shaped and erased as the glaciers retreat by more than fifty meters each year. This cave, deep within the Vatnajökull glacier, was flash-flooded, and the cold was so intense that air bubbles froze into delicate rings across the cave floor with each ring measuring between one and three inches in diameter. Moving through the cave felt like crossing the finely marbled floors of an ancient church, where time, silence, and fragility are etched into every surface.

The book draws on McCormack’s decades of work across six continents, including experience with conservation organisations and field researchers. While the project spans locations from Iceland and Antarctica to Kenya, Botswana and British Columbia, it is grounded in McCormack’s Australian perspective on land, ecology and visual structure.

Aerial Photograph, Kenya, 2024Over Lake Magadi, flamingos and algae choreograph living patterns that feel both ancient and alive. The lake’s extreme alkalinity—rich in soda ash and dissolved minerals—creates the perfect conditions for dense blooms of cyanobacteria, whose pigments stain the water in deep crimsons and rusts. As flamingos gather to feed on the algae, their movements trace pale arcs and whorls across the surface, stirring the mineral-laden shallows and reshaping the colours beneath their feet. — Aerial Photograph, Kenya, 2024 Over Lake Magadi, flamingos and algae choreograph living patterns that feel both ancient and alive. The lake’s extreme alkalinity—rich in soda ash and dissolved minerals—creates the perfect conditions for dense blooms of cyanobacteria, whose pigments stain the water in deep crimsons and rusts. As flamingos gather to feed on the algae, their movements trace pale arcs and whorls across the surface, stirring the mineral-laden shallows and reshaping the colours beneath their feet.

The work explores how natural patterns repeat across scale—from microscopic mineral formations to vast aerial landscapes—linking phenomena such as tree rings, migration paths, coral systems and river deltas through a shared visual logic.

McCormack presents these connections as a kind of “living grammar” in which nature operates as both architect and storyteller.

Aerial Photograph, Iceland, 2025In southern Iceland, braided rivers spread across broad outwash plains, dividing and rejoining in endlessly shifting patterns shaped by meltwater from nearby glaciers. As ice melts, torrents of sediment-rich water surge downstream, depositing sand, silt, and volcanic ash in overlapping channels that are constantly rearranged by flow, floods, and seasonal change. — Aerial Photograph, Iceland, 2025 In southern Iceland, braided rivers spread across broad outwash plains, dividing and rejoining in endlessly shifting patterns shaped by meltwater from nearby glaciers. As ice melts, torrents of sediment-rich water surge downstream, depositing sand, silt, and volcanic ash in overlapping channels that are constantly rearranged by flow, floods, and seasonal change.

The monograph moves between macro and micro perspectives, pairing aerial views of elephant tracks with magnified tree rings, and crystalline structures with subjects like bird plumage and tidal formations.

The result is a body of work that frames the natural world as an interconnected system rather than isolated scenes.

Aerial Photograph, Botswana, 2014Hippos move through the Okavango Delta guided less by sight than by smell. With relatively poor eyesight, they rely on scent to orient themselves in the dark, following familiar olfactory cues as they leave the water each night to graze. Night after night, generation after generation, they take the same routes between river and floodplain, their massive bodies compressing vegetation and soil into deep, persistent paths. — Aerial Photograph, Botswana, 2014 Hippos move through the Okavango Delta guided less by sight than by smell. With relatively poor eyesight, they rely on scent to orient themselves in the dark, following familiar olfactory cues as they leave the water each night to graze. Night after night, generation after generation, they take the same routes between river and floodplain, their massive bodies compressing vegetation and soil into deep, persistent paths.

Contributors to the book include Ami Vitale, Wade Davis, David George Haskell, Daniel Katz and Sylvia Earle.

Alongside his photographic practice, McCormack currently leads camera software engineering for iPhone at Apple, and a number of the images in the book were captured using iPhone technology, reflecting his interest in how evolving tools shape contemporary image-making.

“There are either seven or eight different cameras involved in the making of [Patterns],” he told Petapixel in a recent interview.

“It’s basically like, ‘Here’s the thing I want to do, and now what’s the simplest thing to do it with?’”

You can hear a great interview with McCormack from April here.

All proceeds from the book will support Vital Impacts, the conservation-focused nonprofit founded by photographer Ami Vitale, which funds grassroots environmental work and emerging visual storytellers.

The hardcover book is published by Damiani and is available now.