From recreating Hollywood moments to capturing nature at its most epic, David Yarrow is a master of setting the scene. We meet the fund manger turned fine art photographer – with a little cameo from Bill Nighy

“Everything’s possible,” says David Yarrow, and I’m not going to argue with a man who’s spent his life proving it. This is someone who photographed the 1986 World Cup Final at the tender age of 20, whose picture of Maradona celebrating with the trophy has become part of sporting history.

I meet Yarrow ahead of the launch of a new exhibition at Maddox Gallery. Stark cinematic portraits of Erling Haaland, Cara Delevingne and Bill Nighy are displayed alongside the wildlife photographs that made his name.

Not bad for someone who took 25 years out of photography to work in the City…

Square Mile: All of your photographs are either at or below the eyeline…

David Yarrow: If you photograph above the eyeline, it hints at an artificial encounter; it suggests you’re in a jeep. Ninety nine percent of people who photograph lions are in jeeps. [If it’s sharks] I’m in a cage in the water.

SM: How close do the animals get to you?

DY: Fifteen yards, something like that. Wildlife photography should be immersive. The photography of animals should be no different from the photography of people.

If you’re going to photograph people – whether it’s the most famous footballer in the world or Bill Nighy – you want to be close; you don’t want to be photographing with a long lens because it compresses distance and emotion. Whatever the subject matter – whether it’s human or not human – your camera should be close.

SM: You were named Young Scottish Photographer of the Year at the age of 20…

DY: To be called the best young photographer in Scotland, a) it wouldn’t be true, and b) it’s not the biggest nation in the world. I’m quite sceptical of awards. You get a lot of people saying, ‘Oh, they’re an award-winning photographer’ – that could mean that they won a prize at their local village fete. I think there are bigger badges of honour.

Pretty Woman, 2023

 “The Dumbo location in Brooklyn encapsulates so much of what makes New York the most vibrant city on the planet. Those with a visual sensibility are drawn to the symmetry of the old warehouses, the industrial beauty of Manhattan Bridge and the Empire State Building peeking out in the background. To tell a story here, I played on the iconic Pretty Woman movie from 1990. Of course, we would be swapping New York for LA. Theatrical and smart, I knew Brooks Nader could play the character of Vivian well; after all, she dressed the same way for her Halloween night last year. Better still, her husband Billy, who is in the car, accompanied her as Ed.”

David Yarrow / Maddox Gallery

SM: What got you into photography?

DY: Sport. I love sport, I love watching sport. I was never good enough to play it professionally but I started to photograph sport and I suddenly realised I could get into the matches for free.

SM: How did you get into the 1986 World Cup Final?

DY: I was working for a football magazine – there were a lot more football magazines around in 1986 than there are now. Fifa had a rule that one photographer from every country that had qualified would be allowed on the pitch for the final. Scotland had got knocked out predictably early but I stayed on, whereas all the newspaper photographers went home. You’ve got to go the extra mile.

I was given a pitch pass for the final – it was in the days of film so I didn’t know what I’d got until two hours after the game, but I thought I’d got something. The Maradona photo has stood the test of time – I think it may be the third most-bought sports photograph of all time.

SM: Why did you go into finance?

DY: I think a bit of peer pressure, a bit of parental pressure. 1988 was a time when people had just watched Oliver Stone’s Wall Street and they all wanted to be Gordon Gekko or Bud Fox. It was very sexy to go and live right there; you lived a fast life in Manhattan. A lot of my friends were doing it.

I photographed the Olympics just before I had to make the decision. One of the tough things about sports photography is if you’ve got 100 photographers capturing one event, how could you do anything different? I was doing the bobsleigh in the Olympics; I thought I’d got a different picture and then 20 other people got the same one. I thought there was a little bit of saturation. It’s a crowded space.

All the world’s his stage

“I needed a quiet day to shoot and that always pointed to a Sunday, but I also wanted a written reference as well as the architectural reference somewhere in the frame.  The green street  signposts  of  “Wall  Street”  were  too high to incorporate into the picture, and I saw no real workable alternative. But by some extraordinary stroke of luck, when I found my shooting location on the cobbled street, there, smack in front of me, was a museum plate that spoke of Wall Street’s history. I had no idea it was there. This was not an easy shot, but we got there and to the best of my knowledge, we got there first.”

David Yarrow / Maddox Gallery

SM: Did you enjoy working in the City?

DY: I spent 25 years doing it so there must have been some bits that I enjoyed. I learned a lot, made good friends. I grew up. I learned about business.

SM: What made you transition into photography full time?

DY: Well, I think the world changed with Lehman Brothers. When Lehman Brothers went down, it changed a lot of things for people in that industry. I thought for the rest of my life, I didn’t want to be hostage to things beyond my control. In 2008, so many people had their lives and careers destroyed for things that had nothing to do with them. I knew my business was going to go south.

It’s a tough thing, knowing at the age of 40 that you’re only going to go down in what you’re doing. You’ve reached the high point. That’s tough. To be always talking about yesteryears – there’s a line in Jerry Maguire, ‘We’ve all had our sad stories’ – you don’t want to be always talking about yesterdays.

I could see a growth model in photography that I couldn’t see in my other business. And it had always been my passion as well. But there were costs and bills to pay so I had to work out a business model – I spent many months and years working on that.

SM: Why did you transition away from wildlife photography?

DY: I don’t think what’s in front of the camera should bend back and affect your ability to take it. To me, it’s a bit obtuse to say, ‘Oh, David can’t photograph my daughter, he photographs zebras!’ How silly, the idea that what’s in front of the camera should affect your ability as a photographer. The camera’s just a piece of metal. Whether I’m photographing a wolf or a lion, or Bill or Cara, it’s the same principles. The motion, light, composition, balance.

I work with the same people because I know them well and they know me. But I don’t know what I’ll be photographing next year. It’s the journey that’s important, not what you’re doing that day.

HAALAND, 2023.

“There is no more relevant footballer in the world than Erling Haaland. Aged just 23, he has many years ahead of him to continue breaking goal-scoring records at the same ferocious speed that has characterised his early career. He is a true one-off and a global sensation. I was fortunate that through our deep ties in Norway, Erling was contacted and encouraged to spend some time with me. There are many people to thank that this collaboration finally took place, none more so than his father, Alfie, who warmed to the idea that we could take an image that would raise money for causes close to their hearts in Norway. We worked on a narrative that would embrace Erling’s physical presence and distinctive Nordic look. It is difficult to think of another sportsman in the world who could wear the Viking look more naturally.”

David Yarrow / Maddox Gallery

SM: Is there anybody on your photography subject wish list?

DY: Oh, massively. I’ve been trying to photograph Willie Nelson for the last two years. I’ll get there. I’ve been trying to photograph the supreme leader of North Korea; I’ve been trying to photograph Vladimir Putin. I think the Putin one has to be put on a backburner! I’m always trying to photograph what other people think is very low probability to get. Everything’s possible.

SM: How did you get Haaland?

DY: It’s tough when you earn three million a week. But the starting point is philanthropy. Always think about charity.

SM: Your set-ups are very cinematic…

DY: Yes, I’m very inspired by film directors. Steven Spielberg is my hero. Martin Scorsese is another one as well.

SM: Any of these images have a particular story behind them?

DY: Well, the one on Wall Street we had to bring a wolf on American Airlines from Los Angeles. We had to take out first class to put the wolf in – the entire first row.

An Englishman in new York, 2023

“Bill and I spitballed back and forth as to how to tell a story in a single frame. Bill is not someone to be pigeonholed and wanted the story to be set outside of London, so we settled on New York. From there the jigsaw puzzle came together. The meat packing district, a snowstorm and a nod to a memorable news story in the early 1960s. We chose Muhammad Ali, as we both felt this was a personality who transcended his own sphere of excellence.”

David Yarrow / Maddox Gallery

A Bill Nighy cameo… 

Here our interview is interrupted by the arrival of one of Yarrow’s most recent subjects. Not the wolf, thankfully, but British acting legend Bill Nighy, who’s dropping by ahead of the evening’s launch party. He’s wearing an immaculate suit and clutching a novel. He looks so wonderfully Bill Nighy, it makes the heart sing. I managed to grab Nighy for a very brief chat…

SM: This is a stunning picture. [Left] How do you feel seeing yourself portrayed like this?

Bill Nighy: Well I’ve never been involved in anything like this before. I’ve only ever had my picture taken in the normal way for promotional purposes. I’ve never worked with a photographer like David before and there isn’t really a photographer like David.

To see this picture in the gallery alongside all these other great faces, it’s very different for me and it’s quite a shock. I’m honoured by the fact that he’s taken so much care and made such a beautiful image.

SM: Did he reach out to you?

BN: Yeah, he did. I’ve never been a subject in this way – photography for photography’s sake. For art’s sake. I’m not generally viewed in that way, I think – as much as I can figure out because I don’t read anything or look at anything. Because I’m so profoundly insecure about the way I look, and everything else in the world, I tend to… can I say ‘fuck about’?

SM: Yes, of course!

BN: I tend to fuck about and try to look as stupid as possible to preempt anyone else’s disdain. So to take what might be called a serious photograph is quite a departure for me. But I’m honoured to have been included in this pantheon. It’s great. 

View on Instagram

An Englishman in New York, alongside other David Yarrow limited edition prints, is available to buy from maddoxgallery.com

Photo: AllaSerebrina/Depositphotos

Posing for a photo can a bit awkward, or even intimidating, if you aren’t a trained model. But once you learn the basics, there’s nothing to be afraid of. Photographer David Suh is hoping to make it easier for everybody by sharing what he calls “The Fundamentals of Posing.” And while it may sound like a thorough subject matter, it all comes down to a few tips utilizing parts of your body.

In the caption, Suh credits fellow photographer Sue Bryce for teaching him how to “never run out of poses.” He then explains that we all have seven posing points from bottom up—ankles, knees, hips, shoulders, elbows, wrists, and neck. “Changing just one of these points will make a new pose,” Suh shares.

The photographer proves his point by starting with his first pose—a timeless hand on hip—and making micro adjustments. “We can place a foot further,” he offers as an alternative. “We can rotate or even go up to a tip toe.” The photographer moves with the grace of a dancer, showing his mastery of the human body. He then explores the many options hips, shoulders, and even head tilts can offer. “And just by changing the seven of posing points one by one we were able to make so many poses out of that one pose,” Suh explains.

While most people were thankful and thrilled to learn, others were wary of Suh’s poses “with flavor,” as he describes them. For those who felt the poses were too flamboyant or “not masculine enough,” the photographer shares some less expressive alternatives, using less of the seven points. He suggests a simple foot placement, relaxed knees, or touching a watch. “And that’s how you pose if you’re worried about what others will think of you.”

To stay up with Suh and never miss any of his posing advice, follow him on Instagram.

Photographer David Suh is making posing for photographs easier for everybody by sharing the “fundamentals of posing.”

David Suh: Website | Instagram

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Viewing a photograph like Sebastião Salgado’s “Gold Mine, Serra Pelada, Brasil” on a computer simply will not do it justice. Like most great works of art, it demands to be experienced in a museum. Even in the Norton Museum of Art, where it hangs as part of the museum’s personal and engrossing “Presence” exhibition, the wall can hardly contain it. Shot high above the action, the stunning aerial image of a cliff face in the titular mine in northwestern Brazil captures a mountain of miners so enormous in number that it borders on the surreal. It teems with as many bodies as a Cecil De Mille movie set, but at least in the latter, the extras could enjoy the craft services and probably sleep in a comfortable bed at the end of the shoot.

In “Presence,” the photograph hangs next to another Salgado image, of a single worker carrying a container of presumably gold on his shoulders, a proverbial burden made literal. The contrast between these two evocations from the same time and place is striking: The wide angle and the close-up, the one and the million, the laborer and the labor itself. It’s everything you need to know about the dehumanizing drudgery of the occupation it presents, and together they stand as a testament to the power of photography to illuminate hardship.

The photos are part of the “Politics, Labor and Justice” portion of “Presence,” a four-pronged mini-survey of the extraordinary collection of Judy Glickman Lauder. I say “mini” because the 110 photographs by 56 artists constitute only a fifth of her collection. Not all of the images deliver messages with the clarity and potency or Salgado’s reportage; some are just fun. But they all reflect their collector’s personality. Lauder is an omnivorous enthusiast of the photograph, particularly in its purest form, as a black-and-white interplay of light and shadow, artist and subject, form and abstraction.

Perhaps more than anything else, the photograph is a document, a proof of life in a particular place and time. “Presence” opens with a suite of photographs that crystallizes the medium’s ability to demarcate the temporal: With Irving Bennett Ellis’ “Judy, On Her Birthday, 1939-1956,” Ellis photographed his daughter standing in front of her family home each birthday for a 15-year period. She changes, the style of her clothing changes (only the front door stays the same), and the cumulative effect is that we watch a child grow into a woman in the time it takes to scan a gallery wall.

The series ushers in “Portraits, Admiration and Delight,” the breeziest and busiest of the four sections. Its highlights include Helmut Newton’s “Paloma Picasso,” in which his subject holds a glass over her exposed breast in a cheeky moment of self-censorship; and a Richard Avedon tableaux of Audrey Hepburn and friends at a bar, staged as if it’s an anthropological diorama: This is what the wealthy homo sapien at leisure looks like.

In Bruce Davidson’s hazy, soft-focus “Blues Bar on Chicago’s South Side,” a couple sways near a jukebox, and you can practically smell the booze and sense the pheromones. Avedon’s portrait of Isak Dinesen captures the author in a high angle, wearing a fortress of black fur. I’m particularly fond of William Klein’s “Hat and Five Roses,” which describes the headgear of the woman he photographed, the smoke of her cigarette wafting into the negative space at the top of the frame.

“Expressions of Place” contains some of the most delightful pieces in Lauder’s collection, including “A Llama in Times Square,” which needs little explanation to convey its charms, and Elliott Erwitt’s “New York City,” a sight gag in which a bulldog, positioned on its owners’ legs, seems to be sprouting the appendages itself. Max Yavno’s “Cable Car, San Francisco” finds hilarity in the mundane, as porters comically lean on either side of the car like a still from a Jacques Tati comedy.

Nostalgia and progress share the canvas of Ogle Winston Link’s “Hot Shot Eastbound, Ieager, West Virginia, 1956,” in which a locomotive speeds by a drive-in movie theater, where a couple snuggles in a car while watching a plane on the projection screen—three methods of transportation linked by one concise image.

The smallest section of “Presence” is “Specters of History,” but it’s among the most impactful. Its centerpiece is a series of Lauder’s own photographs taken at Auschwitz from 1988 to 1991. “Cell at Auschwitz” bears witness to the prisoners who lived and died there, revealing walls scratched with their words and doodles. “Execution Wall” achieves much the same but is heightened through the use of infrared film to reveal the bullet holes that would be obscured in traditional photographs of the space. In Lauder’s horrifying remembrance, they appear like snowflakes frozen in time.

Which brings us back to “Politics, Labor and Justice,” where the aforementioned Sebastião Salgado photographs share space with a sprawling portrait of the famous Chicago 7, the antiwar protestors whose trial became a cause célèbre for the 1960s counterculture; and Paul Fusco’s iconic accounting of Robert F. Kennedy’s funeral train, in which a family is lined up in ascending order of height, like nesting dolls, to pay tribute to the fallen senator.

You might want to carve out your most viewing time in this section, which also includes Gordon Parks’ subversive, masterful “American Gothic” and James Karales’ “Selma to Montgomery March,” where storm clouds consume the upper half of the image, perhaps prophesying turbulence to come. But of all the images in “Presence,” the one that might just stick with me the longest is Danny Lyon’s “Sixteenth Street Baptist Church Bombing.” Following the tragic attack that killed four Black girls in 1963, Lyon snapped the reaction of a woman, her expression one of anguish and helplessness and she stares into the camera, as if begging for answers the photographer cannot provide.

“Presence” runs through March 10 at Norton Museum of Art, 1450 S. Dixie Highway, West Palm Beach. Admission Costs $18 adults, $15 for seniors and $5 for students. Call 561/832-5196 or visit norton.org.

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