Because primates are so human-like, taking portraits of them is a bit eerie. They look at you just like a person does -- with various types of expressions, curiosity, and intelligence. I photographed this orangutan in Tanjung Puting National Park in Indonesian Borneo, and the look in his eyes tempted me to ask him for a game of chess or for an intellectual discussion of Indonesian politics! It was very hot and humid, and I wondered how these animals survive in the heat. You can see orangs moving toward you in the thick forest because the tops of the trees sway. They climb up slender trees and then use their weight to rock back and forth so they are catapulted to the next tree. My settings for this shot were 1/250, f/16, and 5000 ISO. I needed a small aperture because I wanted to make sure the animal's hair in the foreground was as sharp as the eyes, and with the 350mm focal length I used, this could only be done with as much depth of field as possible. You can tell by the ISO that it was dark on the jungle floor. I used Neat Image software to eliminate noise.
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