David Yarrow works are predominantly in black and white, with a focus on the nuances of the shades between them. Resulting images are often cinematic in their contrast of light and shadows and in their timeless quality.
Wildlife
Wild animals are a major subject in Yarrow’s work, captured both in the artist’s characteristically zoomed-in portraits or against the distant background of their natural surroundings. When facing the camera, animals—such as the elephant in Africa or the lion in South Africa (both 2018)—appear to be charging forward, the force of their movement and weight translated into the two-dimensional image through Yarrow’s use of dramatic lighting and saturation.
Yarrow’s practice drew controversy in 2021, when the artist was accused of allegedly baiting foxes in Grand Teton National Park, Wyoming and criticised for his previous uses of animals as props. Yarrow has since told Outside that his approach has become more mindful of possible contentions, with a shift away from the wildlife towards human life.
Storytelling
While recognised as a wildlife photographer, Yarrow is more concerned with storytelling through photographic images than specifically with wildlife. He has captured on camera portraits of Suri villagers in Kibish, Ethiopia in 2013 and beachside parties in North Korea in 2017, offering a candid insight into daily life in cultures that are not easily accessible to those on the outside.
Storytelling is also the title of one of Yarrow’s photographic series, which involved meticulous planning and casting to stage scenes that reference the Western wilderness, urban life, and history in America. The Wolves of Wall Street (2019), for example, pays homage to the 2013 Martin Scorsese film through a celebratory scene in an office, featuring Jordan Belfort—whose memoir inspired the film—and an actual wolf at the centre of the image. Historical pubs dating back to the age of Prohibition recur throughout ‘Storytelling’, in which Yarrow devises elaborate group portraits of models, locals, and wolves, as seen in The Unusual Suspects (2019) and Dead Man’s Hand (2020).
Ambassador and Charity
An active conservationist, Yarrow has used his photographs towards philanthropic and conservation projects. He is an ambassador for WildArt, The Kevin Richardson Foundation, and Nikon, among others, and has raised funds for the British National Health Service during the Covid-19 pandemic and for Australian bush fire relief efforts in the campaign #KoalaComeback in 2020.
In December 2019, a print of The Wolves of Wall Street signed by Leonardo DiCarpio and Martin Scorsese sold for US $200,000, with the proceeds going to conservation NGOs.
