David Yarrow Scottish, b. 1966
The Black Panther Returns, 2019
Archival Pigment Print
71 x 90 inches
Edition of 12 plus 3 artist's proofs
Signed, editioned and dated on the bottom recto
THE BLACK PANTHER RETURNS South Africa – 2019 Nikon makes some excellent prime lenses and the newly released 105mm is now a favourite of mine. After the 58mm, it is...
THE BLACK PANTHER RETURNS
South Africa – 2019
Nikon makes some excellent prime lenses and the newly released 105mm is now a favourite of mine. After the 58mm, it is the second most useful lens in my bag when I go to Africa. It is fast and its optical quality is quite magnificent.
This photograph of a black panther required precision in all I can do and then precision in all that the camera can do. I shot with 1600/1 a second as this cat was moving so quickly towards my cage that I worried any longer shutter speed would risk blur and what a picture to screw up by making a lazy setting. I then opened the lens wide up to F2.8m so as to make everything in front and behind the panther’s face out of focus. I think I had three inches of depth of field - just enough. The “45 degree” early morning back light then left me with a balancing ISO of 500, which on the D850 is fine. I chose the D850 over the beast that is the D5 as I was happy to sacrifice frames per second for resolution.
That is quite a technical narrative for this photograph and this book, but the reality is that after the word “emotion”, I think the next most important word for a photographer is “maths”. Maths does matter - photography may be an art long before it is a science - but as I say to my 16 year old son - Cameron, who is a good photographer, “know your maths”.
I look at this photograph with the dust, the composition, the backlight and the energy and I recognize that I have got better as a photographer with age. I make pictures not take pictures and through failure I have a more refined understanding of what I need to do when I go to work. I am not sure I could have made this image in 2010 or even 2016.
South Africa – 2019
Nikon makes some excellent prime lenses and the newly released 105mm is now a favourite of mine. After the 58mm, it is the second most useful lens in my bag when I go to Africa. It is fast and its optical quality is quite magnificent.
This photograph of a black panther required precision in all I can do and then precision in all that the camera can do. I shot with 1600/1 a second as this cat was moving so quickly towards my cage that I worried any longer shutter speed would risk blur and what a picture to screw up by making a lazy setting. I then opened the lens wide up to F2.8m so as to make everything in front and behind the panther’s face out of focus. I think I had three inches of depth of field - just enough. The “45 degree” early morning back light then left me with a balancing ISO of 500, which on the D850 is fine. I chose the D850 over the beast that is the D5 as I was happy to sacrifice frames per second for resolution.
That is quite a technical narrative for this photograph and this book, but the reality is that after the word “emotion”, I think the next most important word for a photographer is “maths”. Maths does matter - photography may be an art long before it is a science - but as I say to my 16 year old son - Cameron, who is a good photographer, “know your maths”.
I look at this photograph with the dust, the composition, the backlight and the energy and I recognize that I have got better as a photographer with age. I make pictures not take pictures and through failure I have a more refined understanding of what I need to do when I go to work. I am not sure I could have made this image in 2010 or even 2016.