2018 Revealing Nature Category Winner: Pedro Jarque Krebs
Better Photography Photo of the Year Awards

Peruvian Pedro Jarque says he has dedicated himself to photography since he was 15 years old.

“I have always had a special interest in portraiture, especially the non-human kind! I consider myself an animal photographer in the broadest sense of this definition. This includes wildlife, but not exclusively. I will shoot portraits of animals in any environment, be it in the wild or in captivity, in zoos, sanctuaries, nature reserves and preservation centres.

“For the winning  photo, the pelicans were in a natural park in England at the moment of being fed. Birds are some of the most difficult animals to photograph because they are easy to scare, elusive and can disappear in seconds from the stage.

“But pelicans are more accustomed to human presence and often take advantage of fishermen's waste to feed themselves. In this shot, we can see that competition is hard and only one pelican will get the fish while the other two realise that it is not going to be their lunch!”

Pedro used a Canon EOS 5D Mark III camera with a Canon EF 70-300mm f4-5.6L IS USM lens. He uses a monopod for stability and the light is natural.

“However, in most of my photos, I burn in the background to darken it. My initial aspiration was to work with the animals directly in photographic studios, but this is difficult for me, so I decided to try other ways to achieve a similar result. My approach is to photograph the animal in its environment and then simulate the studio effect by darkening the background. My surprise is that the end result pleased me even more, because the animal, not being in a situation of stress, can show its natural behaviour naturally and the only difference is that I obscure the background in post-production.

“I think my method has the great advantage of showing the animal’s spontaneous behaviour.”

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