David Yarrow

Keith Wilson talks to Nikon Ambassador David Yarrow about changing careers, his favourite lens and the importance of choosing the right aftershave for photographing lions…

- Keith Wilson

Wednesday morning, and David Yarrow is in an airport departure lounge waiting to board a flight for the next leg of his wild encounters exhibition tour to the major cities of Europe. after that he will head to the Us for more showings from coast to coast. hopefully his flight will be delayed so we can chat for a little longer! sorry David…

Where are you off to today?

I’m off to Amsterdam as I’ve got a big show opening there in two days’ time. I have shows coming up in the next month in Amsterdam, Paris, Zurich, Milan and Stockholm, and then more in December in New York, Los Angeles and Palm Beach. So I’m cramming a lot in! There were 1600 people at the opening at Somerset House in London last week. Some galleries in Australia have expressed an interest too, which my colleague will explore some time in January.

How long has wild encounters been in the making?

There are some pictures that pre-date the idea for the book by a couple of years. I knew I was going to publish a [wildlife photography] book, but I didn’t really know how the book would pan out. When I changed publisher in January, we thought about all of the other books that had been done and how mine could be different. The idea of doing it in terms of longitude from north to south in the world really came together three months later. My last few photography trips for the book were in May and June of 2016. So, in all, it’s three years’ work.

Why did you change publishers to rizzoli of New York?

Rizzoli’s a fine art, high fashion, luxury book company. I wanted to work with them because the tonal rendition in the book needed to be strong, and I knew that Rizzoli could deliver this.

Wild encounters covers all seven continents. were there any particular locations or experiences that stood out from the rest?