Interview: David Yarrow
“Don’t call me a wildlife photographer…”
“Success is 99 per cent failure,” says British photographer and conservationist David Yarrow. That might be true, but the one per cent of Yarrow’s work that isn’t a failure has succeeded quite spectacularly, earning him an international following and eye-catching sales figures for his work, including The Wolf of Main Street and Africa (the latter sold for $106,000 at Sotheby’s in April 2019).
Born in Glasgow, Yarrow started out as a sports photographer, creating work seen in newspapers around the world. But it’s his photos of the natural world, from Amboseli to Montana, that he’s more known for now, though Yarrow rejects the ‘wildlife photographer’ tag.
150 of his most iconic photos have been collected together in a new book, featuring wolves, gorillas, lions and elephants. Striking images like these don’t come easy. Yarrow’s famous 2011 Jaws photo of a leaping shark catching a seal in its teeth took 28 laborious hours lying front-down on the deck of a boat in South Africa’s False Bay. Many other photos have required him to go the extra mile, from using cages or remote-controlled cameras to get close and eye-level with wild animals,
to staging elaborate photo shoots with tame animals and models, including Kate Moss and Cara Delevingne.
Right through your career, it seems you’ve been ready to go to extreme lengths. To take photos that stand out, do you need that commitment?
Yes. As someone once said “There are no traffic jams along the extra mile.”
Photography is my passion. It’s not a chore, but sometimes we have to put in a real shift. It costs nothing to work hard. Original content needs to be exactly that, and you won’t tend to find that outside your front door.
What are the most extreme lengths you’ve gone to?
In South Sudan, in 2014, I pushed a few boundaries. I was further north of Juba, the capital, than anyone who does my job had been for some time. There are dangers up there and [people with] AK-47s. But it was worth it. The image Mankind changed my life. I didn’t see a fellow foreigner for four days. That’s not normal. South Sudan is more the final frontier than Antarctica. Cruise ships go there.
How close to harm have you come when photographing wildlife?
With animals, probably just a grizzly
bear moment in Alaska when I got between a mum and her cubs. But people are always more dangerous than animals. They can get drunk, smoke weed and buy guns. Places like Bangladesh and South Sudan are tough at times. I take care, though. I’m a dad before I’m an artist. I’m a pussycat really.
I had a micro-light crash in Mauritania in 2007. That was the closest I came to real trouble. The desert is a good place to crash-land.
Your wildlife photography’s dominated by iconic animals. What’s the appeal of the ‘big beasts’?
I like the big iconic animals. If faced with a choice of working with silverback gorillas or baboons, I’d choose a silverback every time. It’s not something I can articulate well. It’s about getting close and being immersive with these magnificent animals.
Are you interested in smaller animals?
Not really, I’m afraid. I run a business and no one wants a picture of an ant or a rat on their wall. I’m sure some people do, but I’ve yet to find them. Some of the macro photography of insects I’ve seen is mindblowing and informative but so is aerial photography, and neither has done well as art. That’s not the fault of the practitioners. I’ve met lovely people in these genres and I feel sorry their work isn’t as sought-after as it should perhaps be. Auction houses like Sotheby’s are the clue. When has a picture of a small animal or a picture from the air sold well? We follow this type of metadata and it’s revealing.
Which creatures represent exciting challenges for you to photograph?
Because I like to work from the floor, the greatest challenges are photographing
“Original content needs to be exactly that, and you won’t tend to find that outside your front door”
animals when remotes won’t work and the floor is a dangerous place to be. Polar bears fit into that category, as do tigers. They would be the two biggest challenges.
The biggest antidote to any puzzle is the employment of time and research.
NFL quarterback Tom Brady provides the foreword to your new book. Other than a shared passion for wildlife and conservation, are there any parallels you can draw between photography and American football?
Tom is the GOAT [Greatest Of All Time] and I’m just a snapper who has taken some decent images over 30 years. The parallels are weak from an achievement perspective.
But I guess we’re both very tough on ourselves. We’re our own biggest critics. I also think it’s important for photographers to be calm under pressure. Tom is the paragon of that, which is why he’s the best quarterback of all time. It’s in the heat of the moment that the practitioner must be calm.
In the book’s intro, you mention the importance of ‘Focus’. Tell us a bit more about that.
It is everything. Focus either deliberately excludes or includes. Focus is the most fundamental skill in what we do. Crisp focus is without compromise and yet so many photographers are not tough enough. One inch out is one inch out. There is no picture if the image is not sharp where the photographer wants it to be.
I learnt from sports photography that precision is everything, and that was in the days before autofocus. In 2019, a camera really helps the user. But it does not have a heart or soul. The choice of focal plane is always with the user.
You also talk about the importance of ‘proximity’ and, in your wildlife photography, you use remote-controlled cameras or work from inside cages to get closer to animals. Can you explain why proximity matters to you?
The closer the subject to the camera, the better the chance of emotion within the frame. Being close to what I’m photographing is integral to all that I do. Distance compression is the killer of art. Did the great painters like Rembrandt ever compress distance? No, they saw the world through a 35mm or 50mm lens.
I want to be below or equal to the eye-line of most animals. That rules out using jeeps other than as a means of getting from A to B. The lower the camera, the more imperious an animal looks, be it a lion or an elephant.
You’ve mentioned the importance of aftershave in your work…
That was with lions in Kenya. On one occasion with a remote, we applied a huge amount of Old Spice scent and it worked. We did this on the advice of the Masai who themselves use Old Spice. It’s a legacy of British rule.
I can scent a camera with Tom Ford, too.
There are photos in the book using ‘staged images of tame animals’, which you mention is something wildlife photography ‘purists’ might object to. What does working with animals in captivity allow you to do that you couldn’t do in the wild?
I’m an artist and I make no claims of working for National Geographic. Whilst we have used cheetahs in Namibia and mountain lions in North America, the principal animal in question is the wolf and there are many wolves in America and elsewhere that are, to a greater or lesser extent, habituated. I work with four wolves that live in Montana – very much their natural habitat. The animals in question could emphatically not survive in the wild and are well looked-after, so from an animal rights perspective, we have no issues. Using these animals allows me to make a picture, rather than take one, and that is very much my style, whether it be in the wild or in a staged situation. I have a preconception of what I want before I go. There is a real intricacy to the staged shots – every inch of the frame must sweat.
I’m trying to create art, not show what a wolf looks like. We know what a wolf looks like.
Some of the shoots you’ve done featuring animals posing with models must have been a nightmare to complete.
Success is 99 per cent failure and we have often failed. I remember an expensive shoot high in the Namibian desert with a cheetah, where the cheetah saw a rabbit in
the plains below. That was the end of the shoot. Animals can’t, in the main, be directed. With Cindy Crawford, the wolf-handler lost control of some raw meat that had been in a bucket of icy water, so that when he threw it, the meat hit Cindy on the face. That was a moment I won’t forget in a hurry. She recovered and laughs about it now, but it was a nervous second or two.
Why do you think your The Wolf Of Main Street photo had the response it did?
Authenticity and a sense of place. It smells of the Wild West. Also, the fact that it was shot at
IS0 1600 with window light helped. A flashgun would have killed the sense of place. We had no idea we would shoot this when we woke up.
Which location or country are you always excited to return to and work in?
Montana, for sure. America has the best visuals in the world, whether it be John Ford’s wild west or the urban beauty of Chicago.
I love America – it’s just overshot. We need to be fresh and courageous in content.
I don’t like Africa, but I do always like going to tiny pockets of serenity, like Amboseli in Kenya. Africa is characterised by its corruption, not its wildlife. Only a hopeless romanticist would associate Africa with an elephant. But equally Africa is the best place to garner original wildlife content. We must just remember that the plains of the Serengeti are not the Africa that 1.2 billion people will wake up to tomorrow morning. That 1.2 billion will double by 2050.
Your book will raise money for charities WildAid and Tusk. How important is it to you as a photographer to raise money and awareness to protect wildlife?
We have an obligation to give back. I think, overall, we’ll raise over $3m this year for conservation and mainstream charities in Africa and elsewhere. It gives our work purpose and it also raises awareness of the causes that we back.
I’m fortunate that collectors have pushed my work up to price levels that can make a difference ($50,000-plus). My legacy is more likely to be our philanthropic efforts than my work, although, of course, I want to leave behind as strong a body of images as possible.
It’s easy to get dispirited seeing human/ animal conflict and other threats. Are you hopeful that the world’s wildlife can be protected before it’s too late?
Poaching is not the problem. It is getting better as a result of conservation efforts and largely American money. I go to parts of Kenya where an elephant hasn’t been poached for five years. The problem is population growth and human encroachment. This is where we have to find
“I’m creating art, not showing what a wolf looks like. We know what a wolf looks like”
solutions. Africa will have one third of the world’s population in 100 years’ time and wildlife will suffer, as it already is.
You’ve said: “I am not a wildlife photographer; I am a photographer.” Are you frustrated by that?
Yes, because the genre is over-peopled by animal lovers, rather than necessarily artists, and the quality of the collective output suffers as a result. Wildlife photographers as a group don’t necessarily do themselves many favours in terms of being creative, commercial or authentic. It’s all long lenses, motor drives and camouflage. Some also have a very competitive and grumpy streak, whereas photography should be collegiate and fun.
There are, of course, a huge number of exceptions to this rule.
I cringe when people call me a wildlife photographer. I photographed the World Cup Final in Mexico in 1986 when I was 20. There were no animals on the pitch. I went on assignment to North Korea last year and never saw any wild animals.
Your famous photo of Maradona was seen around the world. Have you ever met him?
No, sadly not. But maybe one day I will. It would be a thrill. He was a genius.
The new book David Yarrow (Americas • Africa • Antarctica • Arctic • Asia • Europe) is out now, with a foreword by Tom Brady and introduction by Holden Luntz, £65, published by Rizzoli New York (rizzoliusa. com)
“T he genre is over-peopled by animal lovers, rather than necessarily artists”