Paying the price
The list of Wildlife Photographer of the Year winners includes many illustrious names, but few have followed a path as arduous as Brent Stirton’s to get there, as Keith Wilson discovers
Keith Wilson talks to photojournalist Brent stirton about his life and his aim to save wildlife
On the evening of 17 October 2017, Brent Stirton sat on the edge of his seat at the Natural History Museum, London, as he awaited the museum director Sir Michael Dixon’s announcement of the grand title winner of the 53rd Wildlife Photographer of the Year competition (developed and produced by the NHM). Earlier that evening Brent had been on stage to accept his prize for the Wildlife Photojournalist Award: Story category. As a category winner he was now in contention for the grand prize. But the straight-talking South African had been in this situation on three previous occasions, so why should this evening’s outcome prove any different? Indeed, only a few days before the ceremony, the organisers weren’t even sure if he would turn up.
As everyone now knows, when Sir Michael read out his name, Brent walked up to the stage, shaking his head in disbelief, and hundreds of people rose to their feet to applaud the photographer who has become synonymous with depicting the worst aspects of mankind’s treatment of wild animals. Much has been said about his winning image, ‘Memorial to a Species’ (see page 29), depicting a dehorned black rhino killed by poachers. But few knew how much he had been affected personally by the horrors witnessed over the years. That night on stage, Brent revealed: ‘My first child is going to be born in February; I’m 48. And I think I left it such a long time because I kind of lost faith in a lot of the work we see as photojournalists. You lose faith in humanity to some extent.’
Breakthrough moment
Brent’s faith in humanity was tested on many occasions before he made his name as a leading wildlife photojournalist. Growing up in Apartheid-era South Africa, it was impossible not to be affected by the
country’s deadly political troubles. ‘South Africa was going through tremendous turmoil at that time,’ he recalls. ‘I went from wanting to become a doctor to wanting to be a journalist, because I thought our communication with each other within the country was so poor at that time that I didn’t think we understood each other as a nation.’
Brent’s initial forays into journalism in the late 1980s saw him work as a freelance, writing for Reuters and the local press, covering factional violence between the African National Congress (ANC) and other black liberation groups. It wasn’t until he was encouraged to supply pictures as well as words that he decided to try his hand at photography. ‘I couldn’t find a photographer to work with, so I bought a second-hand camera and spent the next year teaching myself how to use it.’ His first published photo story featured kangaroo courts in KwaZulu-Natal, where people would be judged by the local community and then, as he puts it in a matter-of-fact manner, ‘either killed or released based on what was happening in the politics at the time’.
I ask Brent if he now sees those first published pictures as a breakthrough moment – a turning point in his career. His response reveals that, like many of his celebrated peers, photography has become far more than a career. ‘Was it a breakthrough moment? Once I found it, it’s been my life, you know. Without a hesitation, I’ve had a great deal of focus on that, detrimental to other aspects of my life, but definitely from the moment I found photography that’s been it; that’s been my focus.’
Of course, his focus in recent years has been Africa’s beleaguered wildlife, particularly the elephants and rhinos systematically butchered at unsustainable rates by wellorganised gangs of poachers. Brent has also turned his camera to documenting South Africa’s controversial canned-hunting industry, which breeds and