'A lot of things bite you in the jungle': Renowned photographer David Yarrow talks Vancouver exhibition
Credit to Author: Harrison Mooney| Date: Thu, 31 Oct 2019 03:14:52 +0000
David Yarrow insists his life isn’t as much fun as it sounds.
The renowned Scottish-born fine-art photographer, conservationist and author keeps a home in London, but he spends a great deal of his time travelling to isolated locations to capture remarkable images of rare wildlife, indigenous communities and landscapes.
“I go to places that keep me very cold in the winter, where you get frostbite, and also the jungle — a lot of things bite you in the jungle,” he said.
But that’s just the price one pays to capture once-in-a-lifetime images, and compared to what Yarrow’s photos fetch at auction — 78 Degrees North, a stunning Yarrow photo of a polar bear marching off into the tundra, fetched a record $110,000 USD last May, for instance — it’s a relatively small price to pay.
The polar bear is also featured in Yarrow’s Diamonds in the Sky, one of over 20 images currently on display in Vancouver’s Chali-Rosso Art Gallery at 549 Howe Street.
The exhibition, titled It’s Five O’Clock Somewhere, opened Oct. 17 with a book signing by Yarrow, followed by an introduction by B.C.-born model and activist Pamela Anderson, who helped to put the event together.
All of the collected works are available for purchase, with prices ranging from $16,500 – $80,000. The exhibition, which brings Yarrow’s photography to Vancouver for the very first time, runs through Nov. 17.
“I’ve certainly got a life where no day is the same,” Yarrow said. “That part is true. But I’ve been at it 35 years — it’s not been without a huge amount of work and application.”
Yarrow got his start in sports photography, capturing events like the 1986 World Cup in Mexico and the 1988 Calgary Olympics. Then, after a brief sojourn in the financial industry, he returned to photography, his first love.
These days, Yarrow is best-known for his intimate, singular shots of wildlife, such as The Untouchables, a 2017 image created in Kenya, seemingly right underneath a herd of elephants. Yarrow’s photo, on display in Vancouver, captures the pachyderms backlit and from below, Stanley Kubrick style, thanks to a remote control camera that could pull in tighter than any human.
David Yarrow’s photography is on display in downtown Vancouver through Nov. 10.
Works such as that one, Yarrow said, are about showcasing “the declining biodiversity of the planet, and the fact that we’ve treated the other animals on the planet with such disrespect.”
“I don’t describe myself as a wildlife photographer,” Yarrow explained. “I’m a photographer.”
But even that doesn’t quite describe Yarrow’s work. His images are less photos than productions.
“We make pictures — we don’t take them,” he said. “We don’t just turn up somewhere with a view that ‘let’s see what happens.’ We’re going to very precise places at the right time of year, to capture one thing, and there’s always an intention with which we go. They’re very much pre-researched trips.”
The resulting photos, then, are the work not just of Yarrow but his incredible team, who goes to great lengths to ensure that he gets the image he’s after.
“I get very bored of talking about ‘I’, he said. “I’m very much the ‘we’, rather than the ‘me’.”
David Yarrow’s photography is on display in downtown Vancouver through Nov. 10.
Asked if Yarrow considered capturing any of Vancouver’s wildlife while he was here, the photographer said no — it rained the whole time anyway. Even still, he left Vancouver with an iconic B.C. species on his mind: Yarrow and his team will head to Norway next week, in the hopes of capturing orcas in their full glory.
“We want killer whales, as much of them out of water as possible,” he said.
But Yarrow is after more than a pretty picture. That’s been done, after all. This is about conservation.
“I think there are enough pictures of killer whales around for people to be aware of how magnificent they are,” he said. “We have two roles from a conservation perspective. One is to raise awareness and the other is to raise money. I think we’re on target to raise about 3 million Canadian this year, which will all go back into conservation.”
A pretty picture would still be ideal, however — the Norwegian orca being Yarrow’s white whale.
“The whale is an animal we’ve photographed okay in Alaska, Argentina, Antarctica,” Yarrow said. “I’ve yet to get a good picture in Norway, but maybe next week I will.”
It’s Five O’Clock Somewhere runs from Oct. 17 – Nov. 10 at Chali-Rosso Art Gallery. Admission is free.
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