INTERVIEW WITH FEDERICO VERONESI
1.Federico, please tell us a little bit about yourself.
I was born in Italy in 1975 and since my early childhood I developed a strong passion for African wildlife. When I was six my parents who are also keen wildlife photographers, took me on my first ever trip to Kenya, a wonderful journey through different parks and habitats. As the plane took off to return home I cried and maybe in that moment my fate was sealed. Twenty years after university I finally moved to Kenya, first working in an NGO based in Nairobi, and then as a full time wildlife photographer and guide for photographic safaris. Since 2007, I spent most of my time out on safari, either photographing on my own or guiding photographers, both professionals or keen enthusiasts.
2. What does photography mean to you?
I grew up in a house where both my parents were keen photographers. My father especially has been a strong influence on the development of my interest for photography. I got my first camera at about 15 years-old and immediately I focused on nature and landscapes. However, it’s only when I moved to Kenya in 2002 that photography of wildlife became an obsession. I am very focused and I don’t photograph any other subject than wildlife. Photography is a way to express the beauty of the African landscapes with the most extraordinary animals living in them. And it’s a way to capture and convey their majesty, their soul, their spirit. To convey the emotions that I feel in certain magic and unforgettable moments.
3. Was there anything specific that you can remember that made you want to become a photographer?
As I said, photography has been a constant presence in my house since when I was a child. Taking up the camera and starting to photograph just came naturally. When I first return to Kenya in 2000 after my first trip as a child, I went to the Masai Mara and one particular evening I was sitting next to a marsh teeming with animals everywhere, elephants, buffalos, hippos, giraffes, zebras and wildebeests, and next to me there was a pride of Lions, bathed in a glorious late afternoon light. This is a moment when I realized that I wanted to dedicate my life to wildlife and to live among them as much as possible. Later, when I moved to Kenya in 2002 and I started spending all my free time from work in the parks watching animals, the frustration of having to leave the animals on Sunday to get back to Nairobi to work became increasingly unbearable. Capturing beautiful images was the main driving force of all this, so probably the decision to become a photographer full time matured as a consequence of these feelings.
4. What Inspires you?
Mostly the African landscapes and the animals. I am not one of those photographers who plan and setup a photograph. I tend to react to the beauty that appears in front of me and I try to capture it, to preserve that beauty forever in the image. However, as I started photographing, a few photographers were inspirational to me, for different reasons. Jonathan Scott, who lives in Kenya and told the tales of the big cats of the Mara like no other. Anup Shah, another Kenya-born photographer with a vision for light and an extraordinary patience and focus when in the field. Later, Nick Brandt has been very inspiring just at a time when I was also starting to work in black and white, with his evocative black and white portraits.
5. What makes the good picture stand out from the average?
It’s a very difficult question which in my opinion doesn’t have a straightforward answer as what stands out is different for everyone. In my experience, my most successful images seem to be the ones where the viewer establishes a strong emotional relation with the subjects. Ones where the viewer can see him/herself in the characters featured.
6. Among your works, which one is your favourite? Why?
It is very hard to say which is my favourite, as generally I am very critical with myself. And on the other hand, there are many images that I remember fondly and to which I am emotionally connected as they remind me great moments. One of my latest favourites is certainly “Together”, an images featuring a couple of Lions side by side looking out from a rocky outcrop. It’s a very evocative and timeless image. I am also particularly fond of “Encounter with Tim”, my best portrait of Tim, my favourite tusker from Amboseli. It was great to be near him so relaxed, walking up to touching distance from my vehicle, grazing peacefully beside me.
7.What kind of camera equipment do you use?
I use Nikon equipment, with a range of lenses from 24mm to 800mm. I only own high megapixels cameras at the moment, due to the outstanding image quality, dynamic range, definition and possibility to print the images very large.
8. What was your very first camera?
My very first camera was a Minolta, passed on to me by my grandfather. It stayed with me for many years until I switched to a Nikon F70, amateur film camera, accompanied by 2 Sigma lenses zoom lenses. When I moved to Kenya I realized that I needed a prime telephoto lens, so I bought a second-hand 300mm f2.8.
9. Did you go to college to study photography?
I didn’t go to college to study photography. I studied economics at college. All my photography is self-taught and the result of an exposure to photography since a very early age.
10. How long have you been a photographer?
I have been a full time photographer since 2007, but I have been photographing since when I was about 15 years-old.
11. How much do you research your subjects before photographing them?
There is an element of research in my photography, but most of the research is actually done in the field, watching the animals behave, learning their expressions, getting better at predicting their action and anticipating their movements. Finding them is sometimes the biggest challenge, and for that a lot of searching goes on, driving, waiting, looking. Sometimes in vain, sometimes with rewards./p>
12. Could you please tell us something about your technique and creating process?
There are places and animals that evoke strong feelings in me, so it’s in these places and with these animals that I like to spend most of my time photographing. Once I am there, my work is very instinctive, I react to the light, the clouds formations, the behaviour of the animals, the possible angles. Generally, I try to be relatively close to the animals and at eye level with them, unless I am shooting a landscape where the sense of space can be enhanced by a higher perspective. Once back in the studio, the post-production of the image is an integral part of the creative process. Though my images are all realistic representation of the reality and the moment, without any element added or removed, I put a lot of work and thought in the post-production as it is the process through which the visualization that I had of the image at the moment of shooting becomes reality. This is particularly true when converting in black and white, as this form of expression leaves a lot more room for interpretation and artistic choices than colour photography.
13. What do you do in your life besides photography?
My life revolves around wildlife and safaris for most of the time. In the rare moments when I am not photographing, guiding, planning trips, editing and post-producing images, I spend time with my wife and child, listen to music, especially rock music, watch documentaries and movies.
14. Why your work is special?
It is hard for me to comment personally on this, as I feel it should be the viewers to say whether my work is special or not. What I am mostly proud of is the fact that every image that I have taken is the result of my own work from start to finish, choosing the location, searching for the animal, predicting its behaviour, deciding my shooting position, the light, the angle, up to the post-production of the image resulting in the print. Most photographers of African wildlife rely on local guides who find the animals for them, drive them there, position the vehicle, while the photographer on his/her own would have no idea on how to find that animal, how to behave in its presence, what will it do, and how to get back to camp after shooting etc.
15. What are you working on at the moment?
At the moment I am finalizing my second book which will capture my latest work, will be mostly black and white and hopefully should be out before the end of 2020. I am also already working on the next one, which will focus on Elephants and in particular, the few iconic big tuskers that still roam the East African savannahs.
16. A funny moment that happened to you on one of the days when you were shooting.
A funny moment that I remember fondly is when I was looking for my first ever Caracals whom I had seen a few hours before disappear into a hole in the ground some distance away from the track. I parked and started scanning with my binoculars for a good five to ten minutes. There was nothing near the hole and I was preparing for a long wait, hoping that they would come out eventually later in the afternoon. Suddenly I realized that the Caracal, holy grail of African wildlife, the hardest feline to see and photograph in the wild was just sitting right next to my vehicle not even five meters away!
17. Where can you see yourself and your photography in 10 years?
Hopefully I’ll still be photographing African wildlife and enjoying it as much as I am now. I would like to visit and photograph in new places in Africa, and to consolidate the different styles I am working on. Furthermore, I would love to contribute more and more to conservation of African wildlife and their habitats through my work. With the new book coming out in 2020, I am hoping to have three books published in the next ten years and to continue and expand on the exhibition of my fine-art prints.