Three years after the completion of his trilogy, On This Earth, A Shadow Falls Across the Ravaged Land, Nick Brandt returned to East Africa to photograph the escalating changes to the continent's natural world and its animals. In a series of epic panoramas, Brandt recorded the impact of man in places where animals used to roam, but no longer do. In each location, Brandt erected a life-size panel of one of his portrait photographs--showing groups of elephants, rhinos, giraffes, lions, cheetahs and zebras--placing the displaced animals on sites of explosive urban development, new factories, wastelands and quarries. The contemporary figures within the photographs seem oblivious to the presence of the panels and the animals represented in them, who are now no more than ghosts in the landscape. 

Inherit the Dust includes this new body of panoramic photographs along with original portraits of the animals used in the panoramas, the unique emotional animal portraiture for which Brandt is recognized. There are also two essays by the artist: a text about the crisis facing the conservation of the natural world in East Africa, and behind-the-scenes descriptions of Brandt's elaborate production process, with accompanying documentary photographs.

創作系列《On This Earth》、《A Shadow Falls Across the Ravaged Land》後三年，Nick Brandt特意再回到東非，拍攝非洲自然世界及其野生動物的變化，創作成新系列 《塵土繼承》(Inherit the Dust) 。在史詩般的全景圖中，Brandt記錄了人類的影響下，導致到動物曾經漫遊的地方去不復返。在作品中每個地方，Brandt把他拍攝的動物肖像印刷於實物大小巨型畫板上，將這些畫板放置回已被城市發展吞噬的原有動物棲息地之上。 除了系列中最後拍攝的數張照片，幾乎所有其他照片內，印在巨型畫板上的動物早已從真實生活中消失。在被持續破壞的生態環境下，這些動物早已淪為亡魂。