Maddox Gallery are delighted to present Storytelling, a solo show by world-renowned photographer David Yarrow.
For more than two decades, British photographer David Yarrow has created evocative images of some of the world’s most iconic personalities, sporting moments and endangered wildlife. In Storytelling, Yarrow takes his work to the next level through tales of adventure and misadventure on an epic scale. This assemblage of truly unmatched work brings the magic and brilliance of the big screen to still photography.
Inspired by the great film directors, Yarrow captures his own cinematic stories - from the wide-open vistas of the American West to the beaches of the Caribbean, from the coasts of Alaska to the plains of Africa, and from the Sea of Cortez to an old saloon in Montana. Whether poignant, dramatic, or provocative, the images are always magnificent.
I am drawn to filming road stories as the road can direct the viewer, and the implicit journey is an allegory of life. We are all on our own road trip. Sunset Boulevard is up there as one of the most exciting stretches of road in America. The heart of movie land, my favourite filming location is looking west on the border of West Hollywood and Hollywood, in part because at its heart is the famous billboard so often used by Marlboro in the old days.
My choice of lead was easy – Cindy Crawford is made for this shot. A busy stretch of road, we were restricted to shooting between sunrise
and 8am on a Sunday, which meant a 4.30am wake up. But Cindy is the most professional and willing of all the stars with whom we work.
I decided that we would travel back in time to the mid-1970s, when Hollywood was free rolling, liberal and fun, with all the props emphatically playing to that moment in time. Immediately, we were transported to the love and peace summer of 1975, with one of the greatest films of all time - Jaws - taking care of the Marlboro billboard.
I knew that we found the canvas to continue our road series of 2018 with the caterpillar road dissecting this picture. The area is very remote with the next big event north of here being the Canadian border some 300 miles away. We doubt it has been used as a film location before, certainly not with an American icon as the lead player. Cindy undoubtedly makes the picture, with perfect styling and a great cowgirl-chic kind of energy in her manner, echoing the intent behind the photograph’s preconception - two companions enjoying the freedom of the vast American West. The sense of place is palpable, set in the America that so many know and
love, with its long roads running to the horizon, exuding a sense of calm and solitude. Such road trips are integral to the fabric of the American dream. The snowfall the previous night added another layer to the narrative both on the road itself and on the prairies. Luckily, the snow stopped and the light picked up, adding warmth to an image already glowing with joy. Willie Nelson was surely singing “On the Road Again” on the car radio with maximum volume.
Joe Pytka’s 1992 Pepsi Ad with Cindy Crawford is iconic; indeed, it is probably one of the most celebrated commercials of all time. So much so, that there have been many retakes and parodies.
For some time, I had yearned to do my own interpretation of the advert with a still photograph and I secured Cindy’s involvement, who in turn secured Pepsi’s approval. The Halfway House has not changed at all from 1992 and neither really has Cindy. The rest of the props were easy to replicate.
The issue was the two boys who were never in the same frame as Cindy in the advert and would be even harder to incorporate into
photograph whilst maintaining the narrative. The idea I went along with was to use wolves instead - that way I could introduce a new angle without losing the integrity of the adaptation.
Why wolves? Well, it is a metaphor for all the men who have wanted to be at that gas station the next time Cindy Crawford turned up to fill up with gas, or indeed buy a soft drink.
THE QUICK AND THE DEAD, 2022 MONTANA, USA
Framed Archival Pigment
In my experience, the most visually pleasing single-street Wild West towns in America are in the states of California, New Mexico, Colorado, Arizona and Montana. There are no real secrets here, which is why film studios tend to focus on five or six specific locations.
The skew in my work towards shooting in Montana is for two reasons. Firstly, I have an established network of contacts and friends there, and secondly, Montana locations are exposed to the highest snowfalls. I like to work in the snow – it adds another layer of narrative. This photograph, shot near the Crazy Mountain at the
old Marlboro Ranch, incorporates the greatest number of extras I have ever had on set - about 120. In the cold, the logistics were challenging, as was the execution. To achieve a collective attitude, I wanted to see as many faces as possible. The women and children in the scene were necessary because I wanted it to appear as if the whole town was watching the shoot-out. This would not be a maledominated western vignette.
There is a lot going on in this work, which is why I love seeing it in as large a format as possible.
Monument Valley is the essence of the Southwest of America: a colossal theatre of dreams and a canvas for movies without equal. It is the beating heart of the Wild West, a landscape of such grandeur that we are forced to recognise that our time on this extraordinary planet is short and our footprint minimal.
John Ford and John Wayne went back time and time again because the landscape does much of the storytelling work for a director. It serves to elevate those who perform on the stage as the context is almost always one of heroic isolation.
Taken at the famous Forrest Gump Point, we had a very short window of about five minutes and got very lucky with the light. Pictures like this make the job so rewarding and always remind me what a team effort it is. A big shout out to Nicole Allowitz, whose styling was critical for the intended vibe on one of the most famous stretches of road in the world.
The title of the image is a borrow from Robert Earl Keen, the genius singer-songwriter from Texas whom we sing along to while on the road in America.
The old mining village of Creede sits in a tight box canyon 9,000 feet up in the Southern Rockies of Colorado. We had been throwing around ideas as to where to stage a Bonnie and Clyde story and chose Creede, not just because the high street is little changed from the 1920s, but because the locals, including the sheriff and the council, were fully supportive of our concept. To a man, the town folk of Creede were committed to helping us bring the project to fruition. Fine tuning the composition was a challenge as ideally, I wanted Bonnie - played by Cara Delevingne - to be as big a part of the image as possible, but I also needed the buildings on both sides
of the street to frame the narrative in the middle. Working with wide angle lenses risks making a loose image and I was determined not to fall into that trap.
My goal was to create one single vignette to emphatically celebrate the heavily mythologised story of Bonnie and Clyde. The final result is a great credit to all involved - Cara, her team, my production team and the many extras.
I sense that the art world is looking for more from photographers, which is why I spend less time working on encounters demanding literal documentation. Every day, we see sensational natural-world images from accomplished wildlife photographers, and I am just not sure where that space is going. I don’t see much of it at Art Miami – a good barometer. Peter Beard was way ahead of his time. His mate, Andy Warhol, said that “art is what you can get away with”, and I understand his point. The viewer decides what is dull and generic. I know from my own errors that photographs of decisive moments in the field can fail to engage third parties who weren’t there at the time. These musings leant heavily on me as I deliberated what to do differently in
Antarctica. Installation art interests me as a storyteller, so we decided to bring some canvases as they can be erected and taken down in 20 minutes without being invasive. This preconceived image is lifted by two factors that I could not have influenced: the textural beauty of the penguin and the tough weather. I know it will divide opinion, but that’s what you need.
(For the avoidance of doubt, our installed art in Antarctica was erected on location under IATA guidelines and without the Emperor penguins anywhere near us. We relied on constant weather conditions and then did the maths on the composite).
Sitting proudly at 11,000 ft up in the sky, Cloud Nine is the infamous Aspen mountain bar/restaurant that hosts riotous parties during the winter season. With its dramatic location and reputation for glamour and excess, it is part of the jigsaw that makes Aspen the most famous Ski resort in the world.
My plan was to film up at Cloud Nine and style it in 1970s clothing as a nod to a period when Aspen really established its reputation as a bohemian paradise. I booked two great girls: Brooks Nader, a livewire who has worked with me over the last couple of years, and
Alessandra Ambrosio, the queen of fashion shows, who is a joy to work with, despite her fame. We needed to shoot early in the day, before the slopes opened, but woke up to a blizzard and freezing temperatures. Perhaps my middle name should be changed to “PLAN B” because I saw the snow as an opportunity and worked the conditions into the narrative. It was the right call.
All those familiar with Cloud Nine will, I think, smile when they see this photograph. Alessandra was magnificent, as I knew she would be.
Iron horses were as vital to the push west in America as the horse itself. These steam engines not only linked the west to the nation as a whole; they also added a glamorous component to the Wild West narrative.
In researching this period in American history, I was - as a romanticist - drawn to these railroads, which led me to the famous Durango to Silverton steam train in Colorado. Not only does the track run through the most dramatic of landscapes, but the narrow-gauge track service also remains largely the same as it was when the railroad opened in 1882.
The iron horses themselves are authentic and in excellent working order, and we want to thank the owners of the train for collaborating with us on this project, as well as the horse owners and cowboys. Some of the staff were kind enough to say that this photograph is the most powerful they have ever seen of this famous train journey.
The key decision was to place a lone outlaw on the right hand of the track, giving the frame compositional balance. Despite his anonymity, his presence makes the photograph even more powerful.
America is the home of the road trip, and Route 66 is its poster child. Evoking images of roadside motels, diners and 1950s Cadillacs, the Mother Road will always be a symbol of America’s post-war freedom and geographical mobility.
While much of the road has either disappeared or been supplanted by interstate highways, good sections do remain, so in the autumn of 2022 I began scouted for locations in California and Arizona that were emphatically Route 66. With so many motels and diners abandoned or turned into kitsch tourist attractions, finding a set that was both authentic and operational seemed mutually
exclusive. Then I stumbled upon the town of Holbrook, 100 miles east of Flagstaff in Arizona. There are some real gems in this small town, and none more so than the Wigwam Motel, right next to Route 66. We went to see the owner and he agreed to allow us to film in the courtyard out front. It was perfect.
To embody the glamorous 1950s look, I chose Josie Canseco, who got the vibe straight away. This photograph is as good as I could have imagined when I started exploring the creative concept.
This old railway carriage, was built in Montana in 1902 and operated until 1968. It now lies abandoned in the ghost town of Nevada City and serves as a reminder of the busier days in the mountains.
Taking the female icon Cara Delevingne to a unique site like this, so far from anywhere vaguely on the map, was an opportunity not to be wasted. This is not a job for the precious, the carriage is fragile and getting on board was not easy. But Cara, as I know from working with her previously, is not precious, she is game for anything that is creative and authentic. The camera loves her and
the styling - in an old buffalo skin coat - deliberately plays to a timeless story. She pings out of the train.
Sometimes an artist creates something that can’t be copied and I think this is one such work. We would like to thank the Nevada City Outdoor Historic Museum for collaborating on this project.
The Pioneer bar in Virginia City has offered so much to us over the years and we are acutely conscious not to overplay our hand here. Equally it’s the best bar known to us for our work. It has depth and the wagon wheel on the ceiling is ideally positioned. Last year I was honoured to receive “The Freedom of the City” and having the keys in my briefcase makes a material difference. It’s important to bring a new variable each time we go back, to create a transcendental image. This time, it was Cara Delevingne. To bring such a celebrated woman to Montana is fresh ground. My directives for her stylists were: bad ass; sexy; sovereign; 1920s but
still very much Cara, which they absolutely nailed it, and as did she. The hat made a huge difference. With such limited light, the depth of field and shutter speeds were compromised in this photograph. Cara would always be sharp, but the rest was down to luck - you are pushing the camera right to the edge of its capability. I can’t think of any other woman in the world I would prefer to play this role. Cara owns this shot.
In January 2019, I revisited an old saloon, high in the mountains of western Montana. Embodying everything I look for in a final frontier setting, that day at the Pioneer Bar there were the usual suspects, and a rather unusual one: Cindy Crawford.
I took an important photograph that day, which I called The Unusual Suspects. The cinematic image sold out and, in so doing, raised over $750,000 for the University of Wisconsin’s paediatric cancer care hospital in Madison – an acclaimed institution long supported by Cindy. One of my best-selling images of recent years, I understand why it
resonates with so many collectors. The rich “Wild West” characters speak for themselves, and every face is the right face. For those who own a badass bar, this is the badass picture for your wall. Indeed, the photograph adorns my own American-style bar in the UK.
After the success of the fundraising events hosted by Cindy and I in Madison and Chicago, and to build on the momentum behind The Unusual Suspects, we released a second image, The Unusual Suspects II. Taken one-fifth-of-a-second earlier, the wolf is one step back from the original, with his head right within the tiny focal plane.
My 2014 photograph Mankind, taken in Sudan, represented a stepping stone for me. Authentic and biblical in scale, when I returned in June 2022, I knew it would be a mistake to try and copy it. I had to be bold. The Lakes areas of South Sudan is way off-grid, with the cattle camps the only source of employment. In 2014, I filmed near the town of Yirol, but this time I wanted to go deeper, to an even bigger camp on the way to Rumbek.
The local chief knew where to take me, and my security detail kept me safe. I would head into mostly unchartered land, where the
Dinka tribe had a camp of over 10,000 cattle. The world’s tallest people, their camps are the largest of their kind. This was a place to play on the word “big”.
The name came to me one evening when, in the cradle of Mankind, I realised that the sensory overload in front of me was a metaphor. As our world spins ever faster, with kids addicted to social media, students cancelling history and adults divided on so many issues, the world of the Dinka tribe has never really spun at all.
Most tight portraits of lions disappoint because the camera is above the lion’s eye, the distance between camera and subject is further than one would like, or the lighting conditions compromise the textural detail. In most cases, it is all three, and that is no surprise since lions are wild animals that are also extremely dangerous.
The most handsome lion in Kevin Richardson’s sanctuary in South Africa, for the shoot, there was just one source of light, which came from am opening behind the cage. By the time it reached Yame, it was even and kind, allowing me to glorify the detail in his face. My
preference was for his look to be head-on and symmetrical. I knew that even the most marginal of compositional imbalances would have a visual impact, so the key was to be patient and concentrate fully. If I put the camera down, or had a breather, there was every chance I would lose the moment of a true 180 degree face-off.
The result makes me happy. It conveys regality, beauty and wisdom, all innate characteristics of adult lions. The Kings of Africa, in this precious moment, Yame had so much to tell me.
A pivotal moment in my career, The Wolf of Main Street - taken in 2015 - began my storytelling adventures as a photographer. I enjoyed making a picture as opposed to taking it, and the result resonated with an audience that was, perhaps, a little tired of my literal work.
Seven years on and it was time to raise the bar, literally and metaphorically, with a play on the expression The Lion’s Den that introduces a lion into my bar series, shot at Kevin Richardson’s lion sanctuary in South Africa.
With no bars on the property, we had no choice but to build one. Kevin felt that one of his favourite lions, BobCat, would enjoy the adventure and, provided I was safely in a cage, I could try to capture Kevin enticing Bobcat along the bar. If we were successful, we could then introduce a cocktail of characters once BobCat - like Elvis - had left the building.
I look at the result of that day and ask myself - who wouldn’t want to have a drink in this Lion’s Den? It has absolutely everything a good bar should have and, of course, an adult male lion bossing it.
To be able to incorporate the sign of Chateau Marmont in an image offers a great opportunity for a story as it is perhaps the most notorious hotel in the world. If the walls of this grand old building on Sunset Boulevard could talk, they would offer a monologue of deliciously naughty tales to make us all ask whether we could have attacked life a little more hedonistically. If licentious behaviour was to be celebrated, the Chateau would host the evening. To tell a tale around this institution and be conservative in the creative processing would be a mistake; the location should be exploited to the full. This mid 70s styled picture, featuring the iconic Cindy Crawford, is a Chateau Marmont parable with a wry twist. In the UK we have many
numbers of pubs called “The Fox and Hound” and here, arriving at the hotel entrance in LA, is the ultimate “Fox” - Cindy, with the most excited of hounds.
I remember that Sunday morning shoot well. Cindy looked fantastic and her team of Peter Savic (hair); Sam Visser (make up) and Nicole Allowitz (styling) are the best in the business, as of course is Cindy. I, as always with her, had the easy job and we were wrapped by 8.30 am, which, by all accounts, is only just after bed time at the Chateau.
Over the last three years, we have undertaken two different homages to Martin Scorsese’s wonderful black comedy - The Wolf of Wall Street and on both occasions worked with the real wolf, Jordan Belfort. In 2022, we returned to film the most challenging of the ideas; the “I am Not Fxxxking Leaving” scene. The concept was clear, but I was wrestling with the execution, as, in a still image, it is impossible to have both the speaker and the crowd facing the camera. The back of Jordan’s head being at the front of the frame had no appeal, meanwhile excluding him from the picture altogether would weaken the narrative.
The crowd was simple to preconceive; an energy charged orgy of 1994 brokers celebrating the defiance of their leader. With explicit references
to the excesses of the era and the film. This demanded a testosterone jammed dealing floor hosting flying dollars, ticker tape, rubber dolls, call girls and marching bands. We even managed to sneak in a Steve Madden shoe box. The trick with Jordan was to have him on a big TV screen facing the same way as everyone else, this way the full story could be told without valuable inches being occupied by the back of Belfort’s head. The ticker on CNBC reminds us how much the DOW has risen since those crazy days of Stratton Oakmont.
I want to thank Josh and Matt Altman and their team from The Altman Brothers for fully embracing their roles as extras. They brought exactly the energy that was needed that morning. Everyone had to play their role to perfection, otherwise the vibe was lost.
I find photographing bears in Alaska both challenging and humbling. There are many reasons for this: unpredictable salmon run; nasty backdrops and the difficulty of being authentic. The legendary Brooks Falls location in Katmai, Alaska hosts many photographers and even more bears in July. Almost all visitors take the path through the woods to the standing terrace. It is prescriptive and pavlovian, but totally understandable as it is the location that has made Brooks famous - the bear infested waterfall. I have never liked the location; it is mainstream and the angle of view is all down, which never works. I always want to look up. The tiered platform gives off the vibe of attending a major golf tournament, not being at the edge of America.
In 2022, we made a new plan for Brooks. If we were prepared to get very wet and come close to bears, we could photograph towards the waterfall from the heart of the river and use the feature as a backdrop and not the main event. There is more chance of losing your equipment than winning the game. I also needed a big bear to walk towards me with a bit of attitude - a small bear would not cut it and nor would any angle of any bear that was not head on. Very little worked for me that day and we did lose some gear. The light was challenging and it was not warm. But we came away with one shot that is different and that is more than I would have had from the stand. Better to have returned wet than chased waterfalls and this big bear has a swagger to him for sure.
I don’t know of a quicker animal over short distances than a black panther. I guess the cheetah would be a close rival, but in our early school days we were told of a cheetah’s speed and therefore to see them run - whilst exhilarating - is no great shock. Our familiarity with black panthers is less established and to witness their speed from a standing position was a revelation for me. They make Usain Bolt look slow out of the blocks.
They can be a little too quick for my camera and, in any case, my
is to glorify the considered look of menace accompanying
their prowl. Their focused eyes offer an insight into the character of an alpha cat. They are tough cats to compete against both intellectually and physically.
These portraits work best when shooting into the rising sun; it may be counter intuitive, but it lends abstract shapes to a background that I want to inform whilst not competing with the main event.
Good creative ideas are only as good as the execution and when I conceived the idea of a literal photographic depiction of Daniel in a cave with wild lions. The fact that we ended up with this image - a career highlight - is testimony to the skills of many South Africans with whom we collaborated on this project, none more so than Kevin Richardson, The Lion Whisperer. It was his behavioural understanding of specific lions within his famous sanctuary that gave me the confidence to even consider emotionally and financially investing in my mad idea.
We both agreed that pivotal to the success of the final image was that the lions we worked with should be interacting with each other and
not me. If they were looking at me in the front of my heavy-duty cage, it would suggest encroachment and the involvement of another party. The lighting was also key, without a light shaft, the sense of being in a cave would be diminished. It was this feature that would also add to the biblical vibe of the photograph; after all, we were working from the Bible. The plan was that Daniel was the final piece in the jigsaw and we would only bring him in when all else was done. Good things take time and I knew this would be a three-day project for me. The predictability of the winter weather in the region was a key asset; the cloudless skies gave us identical light day after day and that then gave us optionality and time. There is absolutely nothing in this image I would change –it’s authentic for sure. I doubt the idea can ever really be copied, but good luck to anyone that gives it a go. The cave has gone.
In building the story, my instincts were to play on the vibe of a Paris Catwalk - after all, we had access not just to any cat to strut down our catwalk, but the King of Africa; a magnificent adult male lion. I have been to enough fashion shows in my life to know that it’s a theatre and the attendees tend to be united in their passion and behaviour. This prompted me to indulge with the idea that we should incorporate a tribal crowd into the set - albeit a literal tribe not a metaphorical one. We were certainly in the right part of the world, the heartland of the Zulu people. The largest ethnic group and nation in South Africa, with an estimated population of 10-12 million, was
within a morning’s drive of where we were shooting. My plan was to bring around 100 adult Zulus to the set - all dressed in traditional attire and armed with spears and shields. The word went out and we had no shortage of applicants. With every member of the cast, we discussed whether there were any cultural appropriation issues in asking them to dress traditionally. As I have found with Native Americans, they said it would be a celebration of their culture; of which they were rightly proud.
My first collaboration with the real Wolf of Wall Street - Jordan Belfort - in the autumn of 2019, resulted in the coveted imageThe Wolves of Wall Street. That photograph has now sold out and I was honoured that both Leonardo DiCaprio and Martin Scorsese signed a copy which sold for $200,000 at Art Miami at the end of that year. It was always our intention to do a sequel, but Covid put a stop to that in 2020. However, the delay gave me time to consider various options for the story line and fine tune logistics. The unanimous choice for round two was to shoot the boat scene with the FBI agents. For many it is the most memorable scene in
the whole movie and of course there is intense competition for that top spot.
They say that the best pictures can be looked at for a long time. Well here we go. My thanks to everyone involved but especially Jordan Belfort, Kate Bock, Josie Canseco and FBI agents Bradley Thomas and Kether Parker.
ATTACKS!, 2021
OF CORTEZ, MEXICO
Every year in the early summer, thousands of mobula rays congregate in the Sea of Cortez off the coast of La Paz in Mexico. On calm days at sea, a spectacular courting ritual unfolds during which the rays show off by jumping several metres out of the sea. It is one of the most surreal sights to witness anywhere in the world. In the ocean, mobula rays look as one would expect, but when flying through the air, they look like aliens or spaceships. They are quite literally a fish out of water. I have no preconception as to what a “Mars Attack” might look like, but this is hopefully the closest I will get to it. I took a great deal of frames over the week, but it is such a low percentage assignment that just
three or four did justice to the spectacle. It requires quick reactions and - as always - good fortune. Much depends on the alertness and manoeuvring skills of the captain of the boat. I was fortunate to work in La Paz with my fellow Londoner - Luke Inman - who now lives in the city and knows the sea and sea life there as well as anyone. He hired the boat captain - Tony Ruelas - and this picture is as much his as it is mine.
What a planet we live on.
This concept excited me from the day it was conceived. The Schmid Ranch, high up in the mountains of Colorado, was Tarantino’s location for The Hateful Eight and when we visited the location in early 2021, I saw the potential of building a set around which to work. The ranch saddles a truly spectacular amphitheatre. In 2021, there is no more contemporary or talked about asset to own than Bitcoin and the majority who own it, hold on to it with great conviction. I sensed that there was room to play a little parody in a wild west setting - Red Dead Redemption was going to tackle cryptocurrency head on. The final frontier was a tough place where the rule of law was light and
valuable possessions would not be lost without an often deadly fight. The lead character in this narrative was clearly not going to give up his asset easily - his loss would be someone else’s gain. I wanted to create a palpable sense of trespass and Ty Mitchell was the perfect character to play the role of the unyielding owner. He plays menace to perfection (though in real life he is a lovely man).
Due to a mutant gene, white tigers lack pheomelanin; the pigment that turns fur orange.
In 1951, the first white tiger cub was caught in India and brought back to the Maharajah’s Palace. He was named Mohan and fathered many cubs. All the white tigers left in the world are descendants of Mohan and all live under human care.
To take a portrait of these cats is akin to delving into a mythological story book. There is a visual disconnect with anything I have previously
experienced. It is the stuff of fantasy. My goal was simply to do justice to the animal and, if possible, highlight the pale blue eyes. These tigers are extremely dangerous and I knew that I needed the best camera and lens set up to compress distance and not lose detail.
I also knew that I would need several days to have my moment of a head on encounter. When it finally happened, I was lucky with the flat light. I also recognise that this picture could not have been taken 10 years ago; cameras have improved so much.
Well, I’m a-standin’ on a corner In Winslow, Arizona Such a fine sight to see It’s a girl, my Lord, In a flat-bed Ford Slowin’ down to take a look at me
These famous lyrics from The Eagles 1972 smash hit “Take It Easy” are sung every day of every year in bars throughout America. Winslow should not be on any map, never mind in someone’s head, but then the Eagles came along and secured this unremarkable town’s fame.
For some months I had laboured over how best to tell this story. Google has changed all our lives, but I still think there is no replacement for a site visit. And so, with no crew or cameras, I found myself on a corner in Winslow, Arizona and just looked and looked.
The truth is that the sassy girl in the car was just a little too good for the adoring men of Winslow. It was a fine sight to see, but that was where the story ended. Everyone was standing that day - including the girl and her unlikely passenger.
Take it easy.
