David Yarrow’s latest body of work brings his signature cinematic lens and irreverent wit to Palm Beach, capturing its sun-drenched splendor, high society rituals, and stylized indulgence. From polo fields to Worth Avenue, vintage convertibles to beachside tableaux, the series is a visual love letter to a place where beauty, leisure, and spectacle rule the day.

“Palm Beach is a place of beauty, spectacle, and desire—and I wanted every frame to reflect that.” —David Yarrow

With its iconic pink façade and towering palms, The Colony Hotel becomes both backdrop and character in Palm Beach. Yarrow’s composition captures the spirit of the town—stylish, storied, and steeped in leisure. Featuring a vintage convertible and a striking figure mid-scene, the photograph pays tribute to one of Palm Beach’s most recognizable landmarks while evoking the charm and theatrics that define the area’s identity.

“The corollary of Palm Beach being the most exclusive enclave of wealth and privilege in America, is that it draws in the beautiful people. This is the way it works the world over, but maybe no more so than in Palm Beach. Love, lust and ambition are never too far beneath the surface. This may not be a place of work ethic, but it is a place of desire.

In 1873 a shipwreck brought coconuts to the area leading to the planting of palm and the renaming of the area from Lake Worth Country to Palm Beach. But unfortunately these days there are not so many palm trees on the beaches – the town’s name cannot be taken too literally. But a couple of miles north of the island there are a couple of ideally positioned palms on Riviera Beach that have long grabbed my attention.

The premise of photographing girls on a beach is something that slightly unsettles me. I am not a glamour photographer or indeed a fashion photographer, and it’s hardly a novel place to focus one’s lens. If the key to art is authenticity, the alarm bells start to ring when I walk onto a beach at sunrise with two models. But on this one occasion, in Palm Beach – the most idyllic and rarified of places to live – I felt that under these three lonely palm trees I could play to the vibe of Palm Beach and celebrate the beautiful world. We just needed to bring the right car onto the beach and work around that prop at sunrise.

I needed compositional tightness and the right use of space; this was not a brand commercial and there was a necessity to make sure that we did all we could creatively. The girls understood my directive leaning and this helped enormously.” – David Yarrow

WORTH AVENUE

In this homage to Palm Beach, Yarrow transforms Worth Avenue into a cinematic stage. Shot at sunrise, the scene captures a vintage convertible, a poised poodle, and a glamorous figure beneath the iconic clock tower. With every element carefully composed, the image channels the elegance and eccentricity of Palm Beach, offering a stylized portrait of its rituals, identity, and unmistakable charm.

“In my musings over how to pay homage to Palm Beach in one frame, I focused on the need to evoke a sense of leisure and a sense of place. Worth Avenue looking east ticked many boxes for me as the clock tower instantly locates the set and, if my composition was tight, the absence of modernity would allow me to tell a period story. If possible, I wanted to go back in time to add more to the narrative.

To write a love letter to this community without palm trees in the frame is sub optimal as they are integral to the vibe. It would be akin to paying homage to Aspen without any sense of snow or mountains. But dogs are almost as pivotal to the community as humans; to be dogless in Palm Beach seemingly risks social isolation.

The problem was closing the road down and, to the best of my knowledge, in recent years it’s been challenging to get the town council to agree to this. We have some friends on that committee, however, and agreement was reached so long as we finished filming before 8 am. This meant shooting directly into the rising sun and this limited our effective shoot time to about 20 minutes. When the sun rises above the clock tower it is simply too powerful to work into.

So, we had one shot at it and it was a true team effort. Nadine Leopold, the European supermodel, played her role perfectly as a carefree, dog loving, life loving resident of the community and luckily the poodle behaved at the right moment.

In my Palm Beach series, the starting premise was to be original in all that we did. There was simply no excuse for being hackneyed – that would be lame. The road shots had to be authentic and celebratory and according to the famous clock tower, I think we achieved that at about 7.40 am that morning.” – David Yarrow

THE RULES OF GOLF

Set on the historic Ocean Course at The Breakers, The Rules of Golf blurs the lines between play and spectacle. A sunbather sprawled in a bunker interrupts the scene with irreverent charm, reimagining the storied resort’s traditions with a wink. By fusing leisure and luxury, Yarrow creates a playful narrative that captures Palm Beach’s unique blend of grandeur, humor, and indulgence.

“Over the years I have been fortunate enough to tell stories on famous golf courses, whether they be staged period shots at St Andrews, Scotland or the actual dramatic reality of the Masters at Augusta. The Ocean Course at The Breakers may not quite have the global fame of these championship courses, but then again, neither do any other courses in the world.

But the Ocean Course, which dates to 1897, is the oldest golf course in Florida and its attachment to the most storied hotel in Florida, means that it has provenance and currency. The backdrop of the Renaissance revival styled facade of the grand old place immediately locates the course and this is helpful to a storyteller. The Breakers and Palm Beach are tied at the hip.

We are grateful to the owners of the hotel for giving us permission to stage a shoot on the approach to the 18th green and even more grateful that they allowed us to tell a story that played homage to the hotel’s wider facilities. We did not want to be too purist in our creative vision, after all, The Breakers is a place of fun and levity, rather than a place on the PGA’s map of tournament golf.

The clientele of The Breakers enjoy sunbathing and golf, but by and large, these activities are ring fenced and one activity rather eliminates the other. The sand on the golf course and the sand on the beach are different.

My idea was simply to tell a tale of the day that the lines got muddied and that one bunker hosted an errant guest. Only in time would she discover that this patch of sand had other uses. Our European models that morning – Frida Aasen and Nadine Leopold – both played their roles immaculately.” – David Yarrow

DEUCE

Inspired by an iconic 1970s tennis poster, Deuce reimagines the cheeky allure of that era through a distinctly Palm Beach lens. Set on the oceanfront lawn of a grand estate, the image combines period styling, playful provocation, and tropical elegance. With towering palms and the Atlantic as a backdrop, Yarrow stages a witty, sun-soaked tableau that nods to both vintage pop culture and the fantasy of coastal leisure.

“There is, of course, a tennis picture from the mid 1970s that adorned the walls of many a teenager’s home or a student’s frat house. Its popularity was not just its cheekiness, but also its simplicity. This was the era of Bjorn Borg and Chris Evert and the sport was very much on the rise in the public’s consciousness. It was the start of an era in which tennis landed an integral role within popular culture and the stars themselves often became sex symbols. Tennis was sexy.

When filming our Palm Beach series, I had been given access to a beautiful home on North Country Drive just north of The Breakers. The property faced the Atlantic and the vast verdant lawns stretching to the beach were of Wimbledon standard.

Towering palm trees soared to the sky breaking the symmetry and offered a definite sense of place. This was very clearly the ocean front of Palm Beach; a stretch of land emphatically known for the good things in life. It was a property that offered a complete visual overload.

I saw an opportunity to borrow from that famous old tennis picture and then impose a Palm Beach narrative. The 1970s styling was quite straightforward, but the concept required some wind to lift the tennis player’s skirt in the manner I was hoping for. In time we had our chance and everything else just fell into place.” – David Yarrow

PALM BEACH GIRLS

“The corollary of Palm Beach being the most exclusive enclave of wealth and privilege in America, is that it draws in the beautiful people. This is the way it works the world over, but maybe no more so than in Palm Beach. Love, lust and ambition are never too far beneath the surface. This may not be a place of work ethic, but it is a place of desire.

In 1873 a shipwreck brought coconuts to the area leading to the planting of palm and the renaming of the area from Lake Worth Country to Palm Beach. But unfortunately these days there are not so many palm trees on the beaches – the town’s name cannot be taken too literally. But a couple of miles north of the island there are a couple of ideally positioned palms on Riviera Beach that have long grabbed my attention.

The premise of photographing girls on a beach is something that slightly unsettles me. I am not a glamour photographer or indeed a fashion photographer, and it’s hardly a novel place to focus one’s lens. If the key to art is authenticity, the alarm bells start to ring when I walk onto a beach at sunrise with two models. But on this one occasion, in Palm Beach – the most idyllic and rarified of places to live – I felt that under these three lonely palm trees I could play to the vibe of Palm Beach and celebrate the beautiful world. We just needed to bring the right car onto the beach and work around that prop at sunrise.

I needed compositional tightness and the right use of space; this was not a brand commercial and there was a necessity to make sure that we did all we could creatively. The girls understood my directive leaning and this helped enormously.” – David Yarrow

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RIDERS

In Riders, Yarrow spotlights Wellington’s world-class showjumping scene, where athleticism meets high society. Set against palm-lined arenas and capturing a rider mid-air over a 7-foot jump, the image channels the energy, glamour, and intensity of the equestrian world. With a nod to classic narratives of rivalry and allure, the photograph offers a dynamic glimpse into one of Palm Beach County’s most prestigious subcultures.

“In the winter months, Wellington, Florida becomes the showjumping capital of the world. It attracts the very best in the industry, from Olympic Gold medallists down to the most promising rookies on the circuit, and prize money at the flagship Rolex sponsored season finale now exceeds $750,000. It sometimes seems there are more horses than people in Wellington in March.

The other venues of the Grand Prix circuit in France, Sweden, Italy, Belgium and Ireland attract the same cavalcade of riders, horses and sponsors but they don’t have Palm Beach as their immediate neighbour. Undoubtedly, the proximity of one of the world’s most rarified and idyllic communities has given Wellington an edge on the glamour and prestige front. The palm trees that encircle many of the venues also add an extra visual spark to the whole affair.

We were lucky enough to be introduced to Emily Smith whose family are at the heart of Wellington’s showjumping community both socially and professionally. Emily not only fully embraced our plans to include these festivities in our Palm Beach series but also lent us her facilities and her son Spencer who is a successful and well-known show jumper.

In the UK, I grew up reading Jilly Cooper’s raunchy novels about love, lust and rivalry in the horse world. She told stories that suggested the competition was just as fierce in the bedroom as it was in the horse ring. It was a licentious world where the leading show jumpers had many female admirers and sometimes found temptation too much.

This vignette of Wellington plays to her narrative. But I know Spencer Smith – who is jumping the 7-foot fence in the photograph – to be a man of strong moral fibre and he would never allow his focus to be derailed in the same way as Jilly Cooper’s protagonists.” – David Yarrow

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PLAYERS

Players captures the bold, high-stakes spirit of Wellington, where equestrian elites and polo icons live at full tilt. With luxury cars, dogs, and a cast of charismatic figures, Yarrow crafts a cinematic tableau that nods to ambition, seduction, and swagger. Set at golden hour on a private polo estate, the photograph channels the energy of a modern Western—elevating the rituals of this rarefied community into something mythic and mischievous.

“My sense is that the leading figures in the equestrian capital of the world – Wellington, Florida – have game. This is not a place for meekness or routine existence, it is a community where life is attacked in an uncompromising way. People back themselves in Wellington and back themselves to win. Whether they be polo professionals, showjumpers, horse capitalists or team owners, this is a place of “Players”.

If a great storyteller like Taylor Sheridan focused his pen and his creative rigour on a town like Wellington, I pondered what the posters for the TV series would look like. There would have to be a sense of place and meanwhile the protagonists would have sexual allure and a hint of mischief. The vibe would be far removed from one which focused on the repetitious and painful monotony of daily life that so many people have to endure. It would be a story of privilege, ambition, vice and sexual tension. That combination always makes for good TV.

These tableaux photographs are always complicated by the introduction of animals into the narrative as they tend not to listen to my instructions. But pictures of Wellington without horses and dogs risk missing key parts of the jigsaw. Beautiful cars are also an integral part of the mix.

I want to thank everyone who came along to participate in the shoot that spring evening in Wellington – it was a memorable and fun evening. Special thanks to the Ganzi family for hosting us at their beautiful polo facilities and entertaining all my frivolous nonsense.” – David Yarrow

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WELLINGTON

In Wellington, Yarrow captures the heart of Florida’s equestrian capital—a place where sport, style, and social ritual collide. Set on a private polo field, the image features a cast drawn from the local community, reinforcing the authenticity of the scene. With its layered composition and sense of pageantry, the photograph reflects the identity of a town where horses aren’t a pastime—they’re a way of life.

“If polo is the sport of Kings, then Wellington in Florida is its Winter Palace.

In these green pastures incongruously close to the Atlantic beaches, a few modest horse rings have evolved into the world’s largest and longest competitive equestrian festival. Lauded riders convene to compete at many disciplines and a vast temporary community congregates each January to celebrate their love of horses and, to a large extent, each other.

It is a social carnival but it would be wrong to dismiss Wellington as simply being an ancillary part of the Palm Beach society circuit; serious money is involved at every level of this food chain. This is where show jumpers earn their crust and where polo players make their reputations. If Detroit is the home of the American car industry, then Wellington is the home of its horse industry. And it is very much an industry. There is more work going on in Wellington than in Palm Beach but it is horse work.

In our travels, we have been fortunate to meet both the Hildenbrand family and the Ganzi family who are key cogs within the world of competitive polo. They were both very supportive of my plans to do an equestrian series in Wellington and offered the use of their stunning properties and polo fields.

I saw this is as a chance to directly use the community as extras – as I wanted to convey not only a sense of place, but also a sense of that exact community. Polo is not an obscure sport here; it is an integral part of the fabric of the place and attracts decent crowds to the big events.

It is a tribal sport to the extent that there is a way to dress and a way to behave and my instincts were that I needed to capture a sense of uniformity. Polo crowds are not like golf crowds or football crowds – they very much have their own identity.

I want to thank the Ganzi family and Michelle Marshall for their help that glorious spring evening in Wellington. Without their partnership, my camera would never have captured this moment in time.” – David Yarrow