{"id":589015,"date":"2026-07-16T17:23:22","date_gmt":"2026-07-16T17:23:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/589015\/"},"modified":"2026-07-16T17:23:22","modified_gmt":"2026-07-16T17:23:22","slug":"street-safari-by-alan-schaller-finds-humanity-in-animals","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/589015\/","title":{"rendered":"‘Street Safari’ by Alan Schaller Finds Humanity in Animals"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"ALondon, 2025. | Photo by Alan Schaller <\/p>\n

Photographer Alan Schaller\u2019s first book, Metropolis<\/a>, explored the isolation of living in the big city, a somber subject. His second book, however, should bring out a few more smiles. <\/p>\n

Street Safari, produced by Irys Publishing, is full of pictures that still boast Schaller\u2019s signature black and white, contrasty style. However, the subject matter is about critters he encounters on the street. <\/p>\n

\u201cI didn\u2019t set out to make a book about animals,\u201d Schaller tells PetaPixel. I just started gathering enough pictures, and I started looking at them, and I thought, \u2018you know what, I think some of my best pictures are of animals\u2019.\u201d <\/p>\n

\"ALondon, 2022. \"AJaipur, 2017. <\/p>\n

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. <\/p>\n

\u201cPeople were all saying no, [you can\u2019t photograph me],\u201d he says. \u201cAnd there were these stray cats and I was giving them water and photographing them. People came up to me and said, \u2018oh, you\u2019re very kind.\u2019 Then this guy played a song for me on his violin.\u201d <\/p>\n

Schaller says the sweet but slightly weird moment meant that he did get to photograph the people there.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt can be a way of getting in on the human level and finding some common ground,\u201d he adds. \u201c\u2018Oh, if he likes animals, he can\u2019t be such a bad guy.\u2019 It\u2019s a way of building trust with people.\u201d <\/p>\n

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\u2019s a 90% chance they will say yes.<\/p>\n

\"ANew York, 2019. \"ACape Town, 2023. <\/p>\n

Pigeons are one of Schaller\u2019s favorite animals to photograph. \u201cI always say to photographers, \u2018You know, you see those profiles online where it\u2019s like a guy photographing women who aren\u2019t wearing many clothes and their whole portfolio is just models, basically.\u2019 I\u2019m like, \u2018Great, but if you can take a picture of a pigeon that\u2019s interesting to people, then I\u2019ll be impressed, you know?’\u201d<\/p>\n

Animals can be humorous to photograph<\/a>; one of Schaller\u2019s inspirations for the book is Elliot Erwitt<\/a>, whose most famous street photos include dogs. <\/p>\n

\u201cHumor in street photography is one of the hardest things,\u201d Schaller says. \u201cThere are a couple of pictures in the book that I\u2019ve noticed people laugh at, which makes me really happy.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s 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.\u201d <\/p>\n

\"ATel Aviv, 2017. \"ALondon, 2021. Irys Publishing <\/p>\n

Schaller is one of the foremost photographers on Instagram<\/a>, having grown rapidly since joining in 2015. But last year, Schaller announced he was launching a new, photo-centric platform called Irys<\/a>, as a direct response to big tech\u2019s pivot toward video. <\/p>\n

Street Safari is Irys Publishing\u2019s first title, but more than that, he hopes that it will become a new model for how photographers get their work published. <\/p>\n

\u201cI, like many photographers, have been through the process of releasing a book with one of the big publishers,\u201d Schaller tells PetaPixel. \u201cAnd the whole industry is just rigged towards the publishers and the distributors. So I thought, Well, let\u2019s see if that could be changed a little bit.\u201d <\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s similar to why the app was made,\u201d he continues. \u201cI felt like publishing needed to be approached from a photographer\u2019s perspective. We\u2019re 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.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"ABerlin, 2018. \"AnFrom \u2018Street Safari.\u2019 <\/p>\n

Schaller says it\u2019s been fairly straightforward to set up a printing deal with an Italian supplier and he\u2019s 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. <\/p>\n

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. <\/p>\n

\u201cSo for my first book with my name on it to go out and arrive trashed was absolutely disheartening,\u201d he says. <\/p>\n

\u201cThis stuff is just too di\ufb03cult to raise with the large publishers because they\u2019re like a conveyor belt, it\u2019s your project, then it\u2019s the next project, and it\u2019s the next project. There\u2019s no personal care.\u201d <\/p>\n

\u201cIf someone spends $50 to $100 on a book, it\u2019s got to arrive in a good state,\u201d he adds. \u201cSo yeah, taking all of these things in-house has been something that has given me peace of mind for the release of Street Safari.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

Street Safari is out now and available via the Irys Publishing website.<\/a> More of Schaller\u2019s work can be found on his Instagram<\/a>, Flickr<\/a>, YouTube<\/a>, and website<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Image creditsPhotographs by Alan Schaller<\/p>\n