Zootopia

Animals in Black & White

I've always had a love of Black & White photography. I've been a huge fan of Richard Avedons portrait work and it is something that I always aspire to emulate whenever I get a chance. The idea of photographing people against a black or white backdrop is one thing, but to try and do that with animals, and wild animals at that, is another.

In my quest to manufacture a B&W preset that I'm happy with, I was tinkering with a photo of a lion I took at Werribee Zoo a few years back and something wonderful happened. I was able to blow out the background to a solitary shade of grey. Going further I tweaked it to be a solid black. And I was hooked.

I had been to both Melbourne and Werribee Zoos a few times in the past year and always had my camera handy. With this new found look I produced, I went through a bunch of these photos and produced a set of portrait style imagery. Over a period of a few months, I went back and tweaked my work and then tried another image, and then another animal, and again and again and here we are.

There is just something wonderful about an animal in pose and something even more wonderful in Black & White photography that just brings out so much texture and detail. I hope you enjoy these images as much as I did creating them.