Zoos can offer us ample subject matter for expressive images. It is important, however, to make a clear distinction between zoo photography and wildlife photography. When we make pictures of
animals in the wild, we can tell the story of nature itself. When we make pictures of animals in a zoo, we are photographing captive animals that are utterly dependent on man for survival. With this portrait of a female orangutan, I try to make that distinction by including the thick ropes and steel bar that provide the basis for her exercise. In nature, she would be swinging from branches and vines, but in the zoo, man made materials replace them. She looks out at us with an expression that is open to interpretation – I see it, along with her relaxed hand resting on the coiled rope, as symbolic of resignation. She seems to have adapted to her unnatural life, and lives it as best she can.

(Note: Some photographers might have photographed her without any man made materials showing, implying that she could be living in the wild. As far as I am concerned, to publish or display such an image masquerading as wildlife photo would be unethical, unless it was clearly stated in the caption that the animal was photographed under captive circumstances in a zoo or game farm.)

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Follow-up note, March 24, 2010: The Arizona Republic has just published a feature story on this very animal. Her name is Duchess, and on March 27. 2010, she will celebrate her 50th birthday. She is the longest-living Bornean orangutan in North America. Her keepers will give her a cake to mark the event, and will break ground for a new $4 million home for the zoo's orangutans on the same day. One of her keepers told the newspaper that Duchess is "streetwise and intelligent. You can't fool her in any way." Bornean oranguatans in the wild don't live past 48. Duchess has a few more years, according to her keepers. She was born in the wild, and arrived at the Phoenix Zoo at age 2 in 1962, just before the zoo opened to the public. She is one of its oldest residents. According to a keeper, Duchess has an attitude that is kind of like "I've been here a long time, and I'm the queen and that's the way it goes." Duchess is known as the "Founder of the zoo's Bornean orangutan Species Survival Plan." She currently has four living children, six grandchildren, and one great granddaughter.