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David Yarrow Photography, New York, NY (2026)

01/29/2026

Wall Street Stories

I was on duty at the Sundance Film Festival in Utah, when forecasts of a massive cross-state winter storm started to hit TV channels. The storm would stretch North East all the way from Texas to Boston and what particularly interested me was the expectation of a foot of snow in one day in New York City.

I had always wanted to photograph Manhattan in an intense blizzard and the fortunate news was the storm was going to land on a Sunday when most public areas would be light of working people. Anyone sensible or anyone following the new Mayor’s advice would not be leaving home.

I am familiar with the area immediately outside the NYSE building, having filmed there before and recognised its visual potential in a white out. I had just enough time to organise our “wolf” and his handlers to get up from California, but speaking engagements restricted me to flying in on the red eye on Saturday night and hoping to arrive before JFK shut.

As it was, I made it from Salt Lake City with a couple of hours to spare and then, as predicted, the city was hit with the biggest one-day snowfall since 1905. These are the opportunities we long for and thanks to quick thinking and good logistical back up from my team, I was exactly where I needed to be. This was about to be an historic day in the epicentre of the world.

By about 11am, snow was accumulating at 2 inches an hour and filming a subject further than 3 feet from the camera was challenging. However, the composition I was looking for would necessitate the wolf being very close and then working with my most extreme wide-angle lens. My preference was for the wolf’s face to be caked in snow and the conditions guaranteed that.

A bonus was that the extreme cold served to amplify the steam escaping through one of the nearby maintenance holes. This added to the visual depth of a New York story and I knew I could use the steam to my advantage.

01/24/2026

In the Beginning

Bison have roamed in Yellowstone National Park since Prehistoric times; indeed they thrived in an Ice Age that claimed both the mammoth and the horse. That is why I am drawn to Yellowstone in the winter as it is their stoicism in extreme weather that defines them.

The photograph is certainly up there for me, so many variables came together at 25 degrees below zero in the Flood Geyser section of the Park. Finding a large frost caked bull bison early in the morning is always a good start, but then to find him close to geysers is a bonus.

These geysers normally omit a steady flow of gentle steam - a bit like an outdoor hot tub in a luxury ski resort - and when I gingerly approached the bull, that was my contextual background. Nothing too dramatic, but the steam evoked a sense of occasional geological activity and gave an emphatic nod to the location. There is a restlessness to the mood.

But then after three minutes lying on the frozen ground, the geyser in front of me erupted, spewing water and steam 100 meters into the air. To give this context, the spectacle doesn’t happen every day and, on this occasion, the early sun was offering a generous level of backlight and the bison and I had front row seats. It was my very own Field of Dreams, albeit a little troubling as I had no prior knowledge of the radius of the thermal water. I relied on the bison as he had better info and seemed quite calm.

I care so much about the background layer in my work; it is pivotal to the art of storytelling. Sometimes it is entirely in our control, but on this occasion, it was a pure stroke of luck. Arguably I have never worked with a more spectacular backdrop in my career. It was akin to a Game of Thrones mood board.

We are left with a timeless freak of a photograph that pays homage to the raw wonders of this planet. It is primeval to its core and a celebration of one of the most untamed parts of the world. It was an honour to see it all unfold on my own at 8.15am that January morning.

I am reminded again that “the early bird catches the worm”.

01/22/2026

The Gunslinger

When won his second US Open at Pinehurst in 2024, he often found himself in some uncompromising terrain. He is a box office gunslinger and no round of golf is mundane. The strength of his short game that week offered a masterclass in escapology. It was pure theatre in the North Carolina sunshine.

That tournament was not far from my mind when I took Bryson high up into the mountains of Colorado in January. I wanted to film him as a Final Frontier outlaw using the Durango to Silverton steam train as a prop. I know the track well and have often worked at one bend of the track in the early morning when the sun pops its head over the mountain to the east and backlights the whole amphitheatre. It’s almost too good a location to be real, rather like a Red Dead Redemption mood board.

If any golfer were to find his ball here on the cliff face and then get down in two, it probably would be Bryson. I am not sure which one of us was more concerned about the precipitous drop from where we were standing, but he certainly is game for most things.

The result is an extraordinary picture full of vitality and depth. His personality is well suited to this narrative; he is full of good energy and then there is material substance behind it.

Bryson was so excited to see the result of our adventure and that made me happy; it is rare to work with someone that is so emotionally invested in the final product.

I may be a European and have some team loyalties, but what a guy.

01/16/2026

The Girl with the Cigar

There are no more useful additives to a mountain story than fresh snow on the ground coupled with a decent but not overwhelming amount of falling snow. Neither comes on demand like room service and our unlucky moments make the lucky ones so much better. Gratitude for the good days is probably a subconscious product of all the underwhelming weather conditions we will face over the next year.

This was the first snowfall on the celebrated Durango & Silverton Railroad in Colorado for over three weeks. When we booked the steam train, the cowboy and the fashion model Kelsey Merritt, we had no idea what weather conditions would prevail that January morning and the results can be consigned to a case study on the random walk of luck.

Kelsey shines in her role; there had to be a palpable sense of sovereignty and a hint of nonchalance. She had never puffed on a cigar before, but she did so as if she grew up with a bunch of wise guys in the south side of Chicago.

I am drawn toward cinematic imagery and this is a story made for the silver screen. My preconception was that a wide composition would allow for a broader story to be told. It really is as simple as that. The focal plane does not exclude the train or the cowboy; it just celebrates Kelsey.

Women have been underrepresented in Westerns to the point of parody and the series we have just embarked on addresses that imbalance. There were girls on the final frontier and many of them had a casual relationship with the law. That all adds to the rich tapestry of the Wild West. There is something most alluring about women who do not play by the rules.

12/26/2025

Looks like we are arriving at the same time as the snow!

Looking forward to seeing a bunch of friends in Vail, Aspen and Jackson over the next week.

Come and find us!

Vail:
Aspen:
Jackson:

12/18/2025

Twilight

Telling stories of the Wild West in one single image is a challenging brief, as no matter the number of layers a photographer tries to incorporate in one frame, there can be a sense that he or she always wants to say more. After all, the “Push West” is the greatest story ever told.

That is why snow is such a helpful variant as it adds an extra character for free and we welcome that. I want to be visually greedy without overplaying it and bad weather or snow is often the solution. We like to work in bad weather or the remnants of it.

The language of light is the cornerstone of photography and I am drawn to the risk/reward ratio of working in sub optimal ambient light. This is particularly true when there is a Western brief, as this was a metaphorically dark and sinister era. The loosely governed nights were long and presumably full of menace.

In the same way that we would tell stories of Palm Beach society life in the richness of full daytime sunshine, tales of the lawless “final frontier” beg for a more Hitchcockian mood. I had this lighting in mind in the few days before I took this photograph in the mountains of Wyoming.

The concept was to build a saloon that looked marooned in the middle of nowhere and in so doing play to the vastness and emptiness of the Wild West. I sensed that half an hour before dusk would allow the lanterns in the old saloon to glow a little whilst also having enough daylight to tell an outdoor narrative. 30 minutes either side of then and it would be suboptimal.

Hollywood has long cast Westerns with a deeply masculine skew - almost to the point of parody. Therein lies an opportunity, because women must have been an integral part of the push West and I like to celebrate powerful women in my stories. The Austrian actress in this photograph, Heidi Berger, owns this stage - she has beauty, femininity and grace in her role but be in no doubt that she will pull the trigger if forced.

This picture is a homage to all those women out there who take no s**t.

12/15/2025

The Jackson 4

The Million Dollar Cowboy Bar in Jackson, Wyoming opened its doors in 1937 and has become one of the most recognisable and celebrated cowboy bars in America. It offers a backdrop to hundreds of “selfies” every day and its longevity as an institution has allowed it to be permanently woven into the fabric of Americana. Very few country music stars have circumvented the Cowboy Bar.

I see it primarily as a place of the night, not the day; the fabled neon lights mark the epicentre of a community that retains an understated cowboy charm despite the huge wealth that sits in the Teton amphitheater. I have only ever photographed the facade of this bar in the middle of the night - it just seems the right option.

On this occasion, my creative leaning was to tell a 1970s music story with the nighttime facade of the bar as my backdrop. After all, little has changed here since the 1970s and this is a music venue first and foremost.

The VW bus was an obvious starting prop, but perhaps less likely was my choice of band leader - the American sporting icon - John McEnroe. John is a passionate guitarist, so I knew this role would appeal to his forever engaged mind. He was also something of a cowboy when it came to showing deference to authority in the tennis world. John brought the Wild West to Wimbledon and Flushing Meadows, so it was a natural fit at several levels.

I believe that my Jackson 4 caught the right vibe that night and the falling snow adds to the sense of place. I would imagine that back in the day many cowboys would have paid good money to swap with John and be on the road with these girls. But he has currency - he is, after all, John McEnroe.

12/02/2025

The Lady of the Lake

The grey frame of this 1948 Porsche 356 complements the snowy and misty backdrop of this winter’s day. There is a calm tonal balance to the photograph which would not have been possible if the sun had been out. There may not be 50 shades of grey, but there is a good dozen.

This is a coveted and highly valuable car and its shape is lauded by car enthusiasts. I knew that I had to capture it in profile on at least one shoot in Norway. This was the location in which to do so.

When we were planning this shoot, we had no idea that the west coast of Norway would be hit by a material early winter snowstorm. We considered this to be a fortunate break so long as we could get the car to the location, which was in an isolated fjord northeast of Molde.

Snow normally allows the photographer a little more light to play with and importantly it adds another layer to the story with no extra charge. We are big fans of working in the snow, especially in soft or low light. But it does also offer logistical challenges in terms of access and consequently, in Norway, we work with seasoned professionals.

The Austrian model Nadine Leopold does an excellent job as the lady of the lake. There is a sovereignty to her pose and I think the cigarette adds a bad ass nonchalance to her character. She seems very much in control of the situation - whatever that situation might indeed be.

The Lady of The Lake was an influential narrative poem written by Sir Walter Scott in the early part of the 19th Century. Scott was from central Scotland (just like myself) and hence I thought it as good a name for this photograph as any.

12/02/2025

Always a special week in Miami. Great to catch up with artists, dealers and our friends in the art world. The one certainty is that we will be a little bruised come Friday morning.

Thank you to the five gallery groups that are representing us this week for their advocacy and friendship.

11/13/2025

Our Dallas exhibition week is now in full flow.

Looking forward to seeing many of the usual suspects in the days ahead. Thank you Samuel Lynn Gallery () - you do this so well and we are flattered by the hundreds of people that come each night. The Big D never lets us down!

Info for our public event tonight at The National and on Saturday at Dragon Street can be found at

11/06/2025

The Fall

I am familiar with this bend in the track high up in the Smoky Mountains of North Carolina and I saw potential for the backdrop in the fall when the leaves on the trees would be a picture postcard medley of green, fawn, yellow and orange. Location scouting is such an important part of what we do and this was a good find. I do not believe anyone’s camera has ever been in this spot before, well certainly not with a steam train approaching head on.

We set about the logistics of bringing a horse to this inaccessible part of the track and all went reasonably according to plan. The problem we had, was that it would simply not stop raining. The first day was a complete right off as the rain was heavy and unrelenting, but on the second day, at around 9 am in the morning, we had our moment. It was a 20-minute window.

The wide range of colors in the frame elevates the photograph and I think it’s as powerful as we could ever have hoped for. The red, the white and the black complement the autumnal patchwork quilt behind. I was, of course, looking to find a way for the smoke to allow both the robbers to “pop” within the frame - not easy, especially for Erica Lawrence on the roof right next to the smoke funnel.

That week we were just a crazy bunch of misfits hanging out in the wood cabins of the Smoky Mountains, trying to stay out of trouble and stay dry whilst making some art. The problem, as many know, is that trouble tends to find us. Just as with this train, danger lurks around every corner.

10/29/2025

Cattle and Oil

This tableau is an empathic love letter to Texas. The two industries most associated with the Lone Star State are ranching and oil and I wanted these distinct ways of life to coalesce as if Taylor Sheridan had merged two of his visually rich productions into one. Ask 1000 US high school kids which State I am celebrating in this photograph and I would expect that 98% would say Texas. The dissenting 2% may need to get off social media and do some more homework.

We built this 1920s oil boom town set in ranchland in West Texas and over a period of 48 hours I toyed with the most powerful layers of narrative. My default approach is to focus on the foreground and then let the background look after itself. A cattle herd brings dynamism, but also a lack of compositional control; the precise movement of the lead longhorns - even with the most skilled of cowboys - cannot be directed and therefore I am gambling.

Days like these can be frustrating as we are not in a studio and the light is changing all the time. There tends to be just a small timeframe in which the magic must happen. I don’t think there is a formula for success other than employing the very best people and then learning very quickly from mistakes on the day.

The feature closest to the camera is key; a weak first layer often kills a tableau like this. But on this occasion the lead longhorn is strong and glues the composition together. That, of course, is pure luck. We have never met before and he had no idea what I was looking for.

Texas is a unique part of America - it is a State that will always do things its own way and that’s what makes it so special. As a Scotsman who has been made to feel so welcome in Texas, this picture is important to me. It has become a home away from home.

David Yarrow Photography

01/29/2026

01/24/2026

01/22/2026

01/16/2026

12/26/2025

12/18/2025

12/15/2025

12/02/2025

12/02/2025

11/13/2025

11/06/2025

10/29/2025

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