David Yarrow face to face with nature – in pictures

The great war photographer Robert Capa said that if a picture isn't good enough, you're not close enough. You can't get a sense of menace through a telephoto lens, so I decided to get close up. This was shot remotely from ground level with a wide angle lens on a camera slathered with the Old Spice aftershave used by the Masai – I was in a jeep 150 yards away at the time. Just after I took this shot the lioness grabbed the camera in her mouth and loped away. We had to follow her into the bush to get it back Photograph: David Yarrow Photography

There's a vulgarity, a garishness to colour images, whereas black and white pictures have a tranquility which makes them timeless – if the technology had existed, almost every image in this book could have been taken 200 years ago. A black and white picture is also obviously manufactured, self-evidently unreal Photograph: David Yarrow Photography

The camera wasn't protected for this shot at all – one more step and the elephant would have crushed it to a pulp. My guide told me to just keep firing the shutter. The whirring of the motor drive was enough to make the bull elephant stop and step around the unfamiliar noise. I started using steel cases around my remote cameras shortly afterwards Photograph: David Yarrow Photography

I've travelled all over the world for this book. I met this grizzly bear in Katmai national park in Alaska – it was just me and him on the road. You're given safety briefings, but you never think you're going to meet one. You're supposed to talk to them, so I kept saying 'Hello Mr Bear' and so on. He looked back at me with contempt and ambled off into the woods – the only time they'll go for you is if you get between them and their young Photograph: David Yarrow Photography

Most of the pictures in the book were taken before breakfast or at sunset – with good light comes a greater emotional perspective, a greater soul Photograph: David Yarrow Photography

They say a picture is worth a thousand words, but combine that picture with the story behind it and it's worth even more. It took 28 hours lying face down on a boat deck in False Bay, near Cape Town, to capture this moment – you can't just turn up and take a snap of a great white shark eating a seal – but now I've caught it, it will never disappear Photograph: David Yarrow Photography

We're all part of the natural world as well. I spent three days on the Sudanese border before I took this portrait of an Omo warrior. Standing up to my waist in a dirty river I could feel creatures brushing against my legs – I still have no idea what they were Photograph: David Yarrow Photography

There are only 1,000 Royal Bengal tigers left in India. Some people call images like these earth porn, but if a picture can help people make an emotional connection with the wonders of the natural world, then maybe it can make a difference Photograph: David Yarrow Photography