«For someone ‘it’s the most beautiful job in the world’, particularly when the photographer belongs to the narrow circle of National Geographic. I learned that this isn’t totally true. It’s certainly a unique and extraordinary job, but also very challenging. In this book I’m trying to describe what does it means living as a professional wildlife photographer: I’m doing that by telling my story, and by showing some of my works. One step after another: from those first uncertain ones, but so exciting and intense, which I did more than twenty years ago when I started selling the first photographs and writing the first stories, until my latest assignment for the Magazine.»
Stefano Unterthiner | from the Preface
ON ASSIGNMENT
A gripping testimony which is inviting us to discover the world of photography, but also to think about our relationship with nature and other species
The new book by Stefano Unterthiner
A Wild Life: twenty years of fieldwork narrated with an intimate writing and an extraordinary selection of photographs and stories




Edizioni Ylaios (2019)
180 pages
132 colour photographs
Price: 42 euro
Royalties for wildlife
Also with this new book, Ylaios continues with its initiative ‘Royalties for wildlife’: the sale of each book means one euro donated by Ylaios to a specific conservation project. Through the sale of ON ASSIGNMENT, Ylaios will support the work of Tasikoki wildlife rescue centre. Located in Indonesia, northern Sulawesi, Tasikoki is playing an important role to fight the growing illegal wildlife market; the funds raised by Ylaios will be used, in particular, to assist the care of the Sulawesi crested black macaques at the centre.
However, we would like to do more and we’re asking your support!
We’ve decided to offer the purchase of a copy of ON ASSIGNMENT together with a fine print certified Digigraphie: 30% of the sum collected with this initiative, which we’ve called ‘Digigraphie EDITION‘, will be donated to Tasikoki.
Our books
All books by Stefano Unterthiner published by Ylaios.
On assignment
With this new extraordinary book, Stefano Unterthiner reveals his assignments around the world for National Geographic Magazine. ON ASSIGNMENT is an exciting and original testimony which is inviting us to discover the world of photography, but also to think about our relationship with nature and other species.
Edizioni Ylaios (2019)
Price: 42 euro
Il sentiero perduto
A book celebrating the Gran Paradiso National Park, through the work of a brilliant photographer. Il sentiero perduto is showing us ‘another’ mountain, it bringing us on the tracks of a man searching for a renewed bond with nature and wildlife.
Edizioni Ylaios (2015)
Gli angeli dell’inverno
Six months in the field to document, for National Geographic Magazine, the life of whooper swans. From Japan, to Sweden, to Finland: a long and adventurous journey in the enchanted and mysterious world of a symbol of uncontaminated nature.
Edizioni Ylaios (2010)
The nights of the bear
Eighty nights in a small hide in the middle of the Finnish taiga, waiting for bears. Season after season, Stefano Unterthiner reveals his encounters with brown bears, but also with wolves and wolverines. A photographic story that takes us into the kingdom of the most fascinating and mysterious inhabitants of the boreal forests.
Il sentiero perduto [Limited edition]
This special edition extends to only a 100 copies, each individually numbered and signed by Stefano Unterthiner. The fine print included in the work is a limited run and Digigraphie certified. The box cover is handmade in Italy.



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