INTO THE WILD
Glasgow-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 photography gave little clue to where he’d end up decades later.
The 21st century has seen Yarrow refocus 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 established 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 Photography: 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?
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
