Photographer Alan Schaller’s first book, Metropolis, explored the isolation of living in the big city, a somber subject. His second book, however, should bring out a few more smiles.
Street Safari, produced by Irys Publishing, is full of pictures that still boast Schaller’s signature black and white, contrasty style. However, the subject matter is about critters he encounters on the street.
“I didn’t set out to make a book about animals,” Schaller tells PetaPixel. I just started gathering enough pictures, and I started looking at them, and I thought, ‘you know what, I think some of my best pictures are of animals’.”
While the theme of the book may be non-human, Schaller says that photographing animals often serves as a bridge to people. He cites a time he was photographing cats in the Atlas Mountains, Morocco.
“People were all saying no, [you can’t photograph me],” he says. “And there were these stray cats and I was giving them water and photographing them. People came up to me and said, ‘oh, you’re very kind.’ Then this guy played a song for me on his violin.”
Schaller says the sweet but slightly weird moment meant that he did get to photograph the people there.
“It can be a way of getting in on the human level and finding some common ground,” he adds. “‘Oh, if he likes animals, he can’t be such a bad guy.’ It’s a way of building trust with people.”
Schaller, who is from the U.K., says that if you stop someone on the street in London and ask for a picture, there is a 90% chance they will say no. But if you ask to take a picture of their dog, there’s a 90% chance they will say yes.
Pigeons are one of Schaller’s favorite animals to photograph. “I always say to photographers, ‘You know, you see those profiles online where it’s like a guy photographing women who aren’t wearing many clothes and their whole portfolio is just models, basically.’ I’m like, ‘Great, but if you can take a picture of a pigeon that’s interesting to people, then I’ll be impressed, you know?’”
Animals can be humorous to photograph; one of Schaller’s inspirations for the book is Elliot Erwitt, whose most famous street photos include dogs.
“Humor in street photography is one of the hardest things,” Schaller says. “There are a couple of pictures in the book that I’ve noticed people laugh at, which makes me really happy.”
“It’s very easy to make someone look at a picture of geometry and go interesting. But to make someone actually laugh at a photograph is quite rare and something that I find I access more through my animal photography than anything else.”
Irys Publishing
Schaller is one of the foremost photographers on Instagram, having grown rapidly since joining in 2015. But last year, Schaller announced he was launching a new, photo-centric platform called Irys, as a direct response to big tech’s pivot toward video.
Street Safari is Irys Publishing’s first title, but more than that, he hopes that it will become a new model for how photographers get their work published.
“I, like many photographers, have been through the process of releasing a book with one of the big publishers,” Schaller tells PetaPixel. “And the whole industry is just rigged towards the publishers and the distributors. So I thought, Well, let’s see if that could be changed a little bit.”
“It’s similar to why the app was made,” he continues. “I felt like publishing needed to be approached from a photographer’s perspective. We’re the ones creating the content, building our audiences, and ultimately selling the books, so giving up more than 90% of the royalties just to cover printing costs seems a bit insane. I know a lot of photographers who agree with that.”
Schaller says it’s been fairly straightforward to set up a printing deal with an Italian supplier and he’s hoping that Street Safari will be the first of three books released by Irys this year. The endeavor will generate revenue for the Irys app as it continues to grow.
For his previous book, Metropolis, he received some negative ratings on Amazon and it was all to do with something outside of his control: the packaging.
“So for my first book with my name on it to go out and arrive trashed was absolutely disheartening,” he says.
“This stuff is just too difficult to raise with the large publishers because they’re like a conveyor belt, it’s your project, then it’s the next project, and it’s the next project. There’s no personal care.”
“If someone spends $50 to $100 on a book, it’s got to arrive in a good state,” he adds. “So yeah, taking all of these things in-house has been something that has given me peace of mind for the release of Street Safari.”
Street Safari is out now and available via the Irys Publishing website. More of Schaller’s work can be found on his Instagram, Flickr, YouTube, and website.
Image creditsPhotographs by Alan Schaller
