Recently I attended an inspiring lecture by wild life photographer David Yarrow. Normally I consider wild life photo’s as XXL boring, but David Yarrow is an exception. He produces beautiful, large and stark contrasted black & white wildlife pictures.

During his lecture he candidly shared his views on photography; both from an artistic, as well as from a commercial perspective.

• Stock photography as a business is dead. Too much supply. News photography does not pay too well. Fine art is commercially the most attractive option
• Black & White has specific artistic merits
• Try using lens openings to the extreme, make choices: either go for a large depth of field or a shallow one
• Less than optimal weather conditions often invite great pictures – who is waiting for yet another picture of the Swiss Alps in the snow in bright sunlight?
• Avoid clichés – do you really want to take the same picture from the Eiffel tower as anyone else?
• Try a 35 mm lens
• A little editing does not hurt if you want to produce art – you are not creating a record of a historic event but producing something you want people to enjoy

If you are curious after David’s work I can really recommend you to buy his book “Encounter”. It is great book, both in terms of quality, …as well as size: a whopping 2.5 x 45.1 x 38.1 cm!