An Interview With Federico Veronesi

What To Expect From This Interview:

Federico Veronesi is in my opinion one of the best wildlife photographers specializing in East Africa at the moment. If you are not aware of his work please check out his book “Light and Dust” & his most recent release “One Life” where his storytelling & photographs weave a compelling & stunning narrative. 

He’s also a wonderful & knowledgeable guide & I’ve done two memorable trips with him to Tanzania & Zimbabwe & fingers crossed have another one planned in February to Amboseli & the Serengeti.

His work is not only an inspiration to me but Federico has been incredibly generous with his advice & mentoring on processing my images, which has been invaluable in helping put this website together. For that, I will always be grateful!

In our interview we discuss his love of wildlife from a child, getting into the industry, his photographic style and more about his book ‘One Life’.

Federico, you first set foot in Africa when you were 6 years old. However, you describe being drawn to Africa from an even younger age. What was it that so captured your imagination?

My passion for Africa emerged at about 3 or 4 years old, inspired by my father who is a passionate naturalist and photographer. What attracted me the most back then and at first were the animals, Elephants in particular, but also Giraffes and Rhinoceroses. For the first few years of my life, I would take any opportunity to see the animals, in zoos, though some were quite miserable, or I would look for their photographs in books. When my parents gave me the chance to travel to Kenya in 1982 I was hooked to the places, the atmospheres, the feeling of being there, and the more time passes the more attached to these elements I feel.

In 2007 you pack your job in & in your first book “Light & Dust” you describe feeling that “a journey is about to begin but you have no idea where it will take you”. So, over a decade later how would you describe the journey?

I feel enormously blessed by how the journey has gone so far. I started off from the Maasai Mara, inspired by the magnificence of the place which I first experienced in the year 2000 when I first returned to Kenya for three months after university. I photographed the big cats extensively and in late 2009 I lived one of my emotional milestones, the encounter with a mother Caracal, and her cub. Spending time photographing them was more than a dream. 

From the year 2010, I began a sort of return to my earliest childhood passion, the Elephants. I spent more and more time in Amboseli NP, where I met another great character in my journey, the late bull Elephant known as Tim, the biggest tusker alive at the time. Later I discovered a certain area of the Serengeti with its extraordinary kopjes. This has now become my favorite place to photograph big cats and features prominently in my latest book. Throughout the years I had the possibility to follow my passion where it would take me, and this has probably been my greatest achievement I believe. 

I’ve been a great admirer of your work for many years & have learned a lot from the two photography trips that I’ve done with you. Can you talk more about your photography style & how has it evolved over the years.

I have always been attracted by dramatic lighting ever since I moved to Kenya in 2002. Backlight, sunset skies, silhouettes, elements of the weather enhanced the drama of the images. When I first moved to the Mara I was also keen to capture amazing interactions, predation scenes, memorable and unique moments with the animals. All mostly in color. These elements were captured in my first book “Light and Dust”. 

Already from 2006, a few years after moving to Kenya, I developed an interest in black and white photography of wildlife, and this became more and more prominent in latest years. With time, I sort of lost interest in the documentation aspect of wildlife photography and became entirely focused on the emotional impact of the images, trying to use the craft to establish a strong connection between the subject and the viewer. I am now equally drawn by a beautiful wide scene that captures the spirit of Africa, as I am by portraits of individuals who capture my eye. I seek to reveal some of their personalities and their emotions in the image. And the emotions that I feel while taking them.

Your new book “One Life” was released last year & I can highly recommend it. The photographs & the words alongside them are so powerful. Can you talk more about the idea behind it?

The book tells the story of a life journey through images of African wildlife, mostly in black and white, with a few color images underlining specific moments in the journey. The story is one but is interpreted and carried forward by different animals in every image. The idea came to me one afternoon in the Serengeti, when I was photographing a lioness with two cubs on a rocky outcrop. When the cubs woke up and started walking around, one of them posed on exactly the same rock where a few months before I had seen a big dark-maned male. The cub was actually the son of that same male, so the scene could be seen in two ways, as a son following the father’s footsteps. But I also thought about inverting the sequence of the two images so that the character would be the same, from a baby to an adult, further up in his life journey. In the same year, my first child was born, and so it was a great time to relive some moments of my life through the images I took. What I also wanted to portray with the book is how connected we all are, humans and animals, how similar are our feelings and emotions. 

You can purchase Federico’s book, One Life, here.

You are a firm believer that photographs have the power to promote conservation. What has been the most rewarding & impactful project you have been involved in?

I have been involved in different conservation initiatives through my images. I am very proud to be an official partner of the Sheldrick Wildlife Trust in Kenya, to whom I donate 10% of all my limited edition fine-art prints sales. I am also very happy to have contributed to the Remembering Wildlife series of photographic books from the start, a fund-raising initiative created by photographer Margot Raggett putting together some of the most prominent wildlife photographers worldwide to create books focusing on endangered species. My images appeared on the cover of Remembering Elephants and Remembering Lions. The initiative I was more directly involved with and was really fascinating was going to China to present my Elephants and other wildlife images in different institutions and universities as part of a sensitization campaign against the demand for ivory. It was very interesting to be in the heart of where demand for ivory comes from, and see how people were actually very moved by the Elephants’ plight and for the most part were not aware of the real dynamics behind the supply of ivory.

Finally, after all these years in the field what is on your photography bucket list?

Being so strongly connected to Africa and its wildlife, at the moment I am focusing on searching and photographing specific individual Elephants that are particularly charismatic and unique. In the future, I hope to continue my photographic journey wherever it will take me.

Collections

A series of photographic work, exploring wildlife from around the world. View the full collection here.

Available Prints

My top prints are available to purchase as limited edition runs of only 25 and 15 between 30” and 60” prints. View a selection below or the full collection here.

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