David Gandy stars in an Alfred Hitchcock-inspired project shot by David Yarrow

David Gandy features in this Alfred Hitchcock-inspired fine art photography shoot in Devon, England, by photographer David Yarrow. The prompt for the project came from the movies, and in this case it was Alfred Hitchcock’s 1963 masterclass in slow burn terror – “The Birds.” The film, which turned seagulls into the most terrifying villains in horror history, was shot on location in Bodega Bay, 70 miles north of San Francisco. The landscape of South Devon is not too dissimilar.

Yarrow also planned to re-create a scene from a Hitchcock movie that many critics regard as iconic – “North by North West.” The rollercoaster tale of mistaken identity, with an assured Cary Grant as the lead, is still a cinematic pleasure. As Yarrow says, “I have always been drawn to the single frame of Grant being chased by the crop duster plane. It grabs the attention and holds it as well as any still from any movie. My plan was unapologetically to look to replicate the shot. I had not seen this attempted elsewhere and that fuelled my desire. Stepping into the shoes of Cary Grant is an onerous responsibility and we needed the very best, so I called on David Gandy – one of the most celebrated male models of our time. I knew that David would not only relish the opportunity, but also give me exactly the look the image needed.”