G
lasgow-born, London-based
David Yarrow’s first major
camera-in-hand success was
the netting of a now-classic image of
the legendary Diego Maradona at the
1986 World Cup final in Mexico City for
The London Times. Assignments to cover
the Olympics and other major sporting
events soon followed. These early forays
into the world of professional photogra-
phy gave little clue to where he’d end up
decades later.
The 21st century has seen Yarrow refo-
cus his energies on creating black-and
white portraits of the great athletes of
the natural world, from lions and tigers
to orangutans and polar bears. Fusing
art and commerce, he has firmly estab-
lished himself as one of the bestselling
fine art photographers in the world with
limited-edition prints selling for over
$70,000 apiece.
His latest book, David Yarrow Photog-
raphy: Americas – Africa – Antarctica –
Arctic – Asia – Europe (Rizzoli) portrays
wildlife on the seven continents with all
royalties benefiting WildAid in the United
States and Tusk in the United Kingdom.OUTDOOR PHOTOGRAPHER:
What made you decide to work in
black-and-white in a genre that’s
typically photographed in color?
DAVID YARROW: I guess I’m a
scholar of commercial photography in
terms of fine art. If you look at the people
that have sold fine art photographs of
wildlife for the most amount of money
before I came along, I’d say Peter Beard
and Nick Brandt. Much of their work
is in black-and-white. I don’t think I’m
breaking any new ground there. Black-
and-white, because it’s reductive, is per-
ception rather than reality. That lends to
the perception that it’s art rather than
literal wildlife photography. Black-and-
white also lends a degree of interpreta-
tion, it’s abstract, it’s not reality. It affordsa degree of timelessness. Because I make
my income from the art market rather
than the editorial market, black-and-
white works better for most rooms and
office spaces than color does.
Photojournalist Ted Grant said, “Whenyou photograph people in color, you pho-
tograph their clothes. But when you pho-
tograph people in black-and-white, you
photograph their souls.” This is true for
photographing the majority of wildlife
as well.40 Outdoor Photographer outdoorphotographer.com