The Ultimate Storyteller: New Releases from David Yarrow

 

The highest railway station in Europe, Ospizio Bernina sits atop the mountains of the Bernina Pass that connects St Moritz to Italy. With “Switzerland”, David Yarrow contrasts the austere beauty of this harsh rocky outpost with the glamour of St Moritz, as personified by the famed Norwegian model Frida Aasen. In the sweeping shot, the platform and rail tracks have become her very own 1970s stage. “This is old Switzerland at its magnificent best. There is nowhere like it,” says Yarrow of his powerful and authentic photograph.

 

  

Shot at the Renaissance Bar at Badrutt’s Palace Hotel in St Moritz, “The White Turf” honours the February spectacle of the annual White Turf horse races that take place on the frozen winter lake below the hotel. With this intimate shot, Yarrow transports this historic event into the bar, with a horse and jockey featured alongside some of the legendary staff members who make visiting such a unique experience. “There are no real rules at the bar, and there is no closing time,” says Yarrow. “My team was quietly setting up one morning at dawn and I wondered where the noise was coming from. I should have thought harder – the bar was still open.”

 

 

  

 

Photographed on a cold February morning in the Horseshoe Bend of the infamous Durango & Silverton Railroad in the San Jose Mountains, “The Manifest Destiny” alludes to the history of the Native Americans and their frequent misrepresentation as confrontational in Hollywood movies. While the construction of railroads like the one pictured here undermined the sovereignty of Native nations, indigenous people mostly watched with a degree of fascination, with the figure in this image standing to one side, announcing his presence. Passive not aggressive, it is up to the viewer to create their own narrative of what transpires in the minutes after the shot was taken. 

 

 

  

Shot on location at Dinokeng Game Reserve in South Africa, “Waterworld” was made possible by Kevin Richardson, who is otherwise known as “The Lion Whisperer”. Without Kevin, there was no chance of a picture and every chance of danger. Protected by the strongest of steel cages, Yarrow’s soulful portrait glories his proximity to this magnificent beast. “It is that proximity that offers the texture and aesthetic strength and allows a close image to transcend one taken from a more sensible distance,” he says.  

 

 

“1,700 pounds of flesh standing in front of the camera is enough of a visual jolt to allow the cold to be briefly forgotten,” says David Yarrow of “The Snowman”, his compelling photograph of a bison, captured just north of Livingston, Montana. An ancient beast stoically standing in the frigid -23C degree conditions, the snow and ice in his beard echo the extreme temperatures that Yarrow and his team had to endure to capture this shot.

 

 

 

 

 

Shot in Palm Springs, California, “Don’t Worry Darling” is deliberately saturated in colour to evoke the gauzy, saccharine pleasures of this desert resort city. In the post-war years, Palm Springs became a haven for those wishing to escape from their past and enjoy a better life. The 1950s styling references the era that came to define the city, with Brazilian supermodel Alessandra Ambrosio perfectly capturing the retro mood, photographed beside a poodle in a vintage Ferrari. 

 

 

2023, Edition of 12, Archival Pigment Print

 

 

 

Set alongside Roy’s Café, an authentic Route 66 landmark, “South by Southwest” pays homage to Hitchcock’s acclaimed 1959 thriller North by Northwest. To emphasise the legendary setting, the team brought in a 1953 Ferrari 250 MM Vignale Spyder as the lead car, with Cindy Crawford playing the protagonist behind the wheel. As the traffic eased at the end of the day, Yarrow entrusted pilot Greg Caldwell to “flirt with the tarmac”, creating a tension-filled backdrop to this ground-breaking shot. 

 

 

2023, Edition of 20, Archival Pigment Print

 

ENQUIRE 

 

This iconic photograph has a personal connection to Yarrow as before becoming a photographer he used to work on Wall Street. Echoing Scorsese’s epic film, the Georgian marble façade of the New York Stock Exchange Building dominates the background, with the wolf of Wall Street standing proudly on a museum plate. “By some extraordinary stroke of luck, when I found my shooting location, there, smack in front of me on the road, was a museum plate that spoke of Wall Street’s history,” says Yarrow. “This was not an easy shot, but we got there and to the best of my knowledge, we got there first.”

 

 

2023, Edition of 3, Archival Pigment Print