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A photographer has captured an image of an alpha male silverback gorilla posing candidly after 10 painstaking years of trying - before his subject merely 'scratched himself then left'. 

David Yarrow, from Edinburgh, Scotland  had travelled to Rwanda seven times in the past decade and trekked the equivalent of around 77,000km all in a bid to capture the endangered mountain gorilla in its natural habitat. 

The 53-year-old former financier had seen the wild beasts through the bushes in the past, but could never get a clear shot. 

David Yarrow had travelled to Rwanda seven times in the past decade and trekked the equivalent of around 77,000km all in a bid to capture the endangered mountain gorilla in its natural habitat. He caught this candid snap of an alpha male last week

'I wanted to get a proper image of a big alpha male but it needed to be a portrait with a sense of place,' he told The Times. 

He set off from the village of Bisate with his guide and porters at 7.30 am on Wednesday. 'It quickly dawned on me why I was alone - this was going to be one hell of a climb - and we were already at 9,000 ft,' Yarrow said on his website.    

A series of labyrinth-like forest-covered ridges in the mountainous Volcanoes National Park in Rwanda is where the majestic creatures - of which there are only around 1000 left in the wild - make their home, suitably hidden from the dangers down below. 

Around 400 gorillas, in around 10 groups led by males flow freely between the Rwandan protected area and  Uganda's Mgahinga Gorilla National Park and Virunga National Park in the Democratic Republic of Congo. 

A series of labyrinth-like ridges in the mountainous Volcanoes National Park in Rwanda is where the majestic creatures live, sheltered from the dangers below. Yarrow said he took a lot of shots but 'I knew immediately when I got the right one'

Yarrow had struggled to get close to any of them, due in part to trekking up the mountain with groups of tourists. 

'For this trip I went without any other tourists but working closely with five rangers. There were about 12 gorillas around, which was a little threatening. The rangers make gorilla-like noises to calm them down,' he said. 

He traced the movements of the group he encountered and set his sights on the stunning animal that we see in his incredible image. 

'I chose my spot and then the alpha male came over and sat down just above me and looked straight at me. The most amazing thing was his left hand and his enormous fingers.'

He said he took a lot of shots but 'I knew immediately when I got the right one.' 

'The perspective was exactly what I was looking for,' he added. 

Despite the beast having a family full of females and youngsters to protect, and the obvious dangers that come with that, Yarrow said that it merely 'looked at me, scratched himself — and then got up and left.'