Ten Year Anniversary of David Yarrow’s “The Long March” Highlights His Commitment to Art

It has been a little over ten years since David Yarrow visited Antarctica’s Snow Hill and captured images of emperor penguins, the world’s largest penguins. “The Long March” is the best-known of these images. Once seen, it is unforgettable: a black-and-white depiction of the profiles of ten penguins marching in single file. The wide-angle image was taken at a perfect 90-degree angle. 

According to Yarrow, “Antarctica is a challenge to photograph … its enormity and its power are difficult to convey in one still image.” He traveled to Antarctica and traversed the extreme terrain to capture the scenery and lives of the emperor penguins and other wildlife on the globe’s coldest, driest, most hostile continent.

“The Long March” isn’t the only outstanding image Yarrow has achieved of Antarctic penguins. He helped to honor World Penguin Day by sharing an image of a father and son penguin walking in tandem. Another image reflects the tenderness of one baby penguin chick helping another up an icy white hill. “Contentment” is another unforgettable image, with emperor penguin parents touching their beaks as they protect their fluffy chick.

The dark-and-light landscape of Antarctica is only one of the world locations where David Yarrow has endured extreme weather and dangerous conditions to capture the inner lives of wildlife. “The biggest difference between art and reportage is proximity and emotion,” Yarrow says. 

Yarrow also traverses extreme landscapes at the other end of the globe. He shares his skills and insight with travelers on Natural World Safari excursions to both polar regions. Another of his iconic images, “78 Degrees North,” captured a polar bear walking above the Arctic Circle. “79 Degrees North” achieved £81,250 (approximately $106,589) at auction in London in 2018.

Antarctica is especially well-suited to landscape photography because of its many dramatic features, including floating ice sheets, tabular icebergs, and vast panoramas that can include the Southern lights and dramatic seas. Penguins are one of the best-known Antarctic birds, but albatross, whales and seals also inhabit the region. Inquiries about prints are available through David Yarrow Photography. About “The Long March,” Yarrow said, “his photograph has an aesthetic simplicity to it which none of my other images from Snow Hill could match.” It is just one of the hundreds of stunning images David Yarrow has captured through his unique approach to wildlife and nature photography. Yarrow’s 2019 book David Yarrow includes 150 of his strongest recent images and has a foreword written by NFL star Tom Brady and an afterword written by Cindy Crawford. All royalties from the 368 page book are donated to wildlife conservation causes.