Chimpanzee Sanctuary Northwest
Hope. Love. Home. Sanctuary for primates.
I had the hardest time decided what to do for the blog today. There were many moments worthy of sharing and even more thoughts floating around my head. I could have written a novel.
Instead, I decided to let the two images below speak for themselves. What do you see?
Lord Byron’s poem “She Walks in Beauty” came to mind with the photo of Negra.
P.S. The “featured” image above of Annie’s profile reminded me of a Victorian cameo. I’m not sure why the chimpanzees brought to mind the 1800s today.
Sometimes just looking at photos of the chimpanzees takes my breath away.
Even though I’ve known them for over a decade, I love being able to study their features and the different expressions that the camera captures in a given moment.
Black and white photos can be all the more breathtaking.
Burrito:
Missy:
Foxie:
Jamie is intense, capable, determined, moody, stubborn, and on occasion sweet and silly.
This one is more of an outtake:
Continuing with the black and white/grey theme from Saturday, and thanks to comments on that blog post, I decided to truly embrace this way of seeing and capturing images by setting the camera to monochrome and finding out what might happen.
I had to climb a ladder in the greenhouse to get these photos, but Burrito willingly served as the most handsome subject anyone could hope to have.
I might just be in love with black and white.
Burrito wears it well.
As you probably know, we have an enrichment calendar that guides the volunteer or staff member who is putting together enrichment for the following day for the chimpanzees. It provides some sort of theme for the day, like “art day” or “troll scarves.” Sometimes it’s just a color, which causes us to dig through the enrichment bins and perhaps unearth that blue or red or green toy that hasn’t surfaced in a while.
I was laughing yesterday about the theme for today’s enrichment: Grey Day.
It is entirely appropriate, being that the outside world is on the grey spectrum today. Right before I opened the door to the hill to let the chimpanzees decide whether or not to venture out into the overcast day or stay inside, a bald eagle flew overhead. I was marveling at how majestic he was, gliding through the sky, unmistakable from other birds with his starkly contrasting white head with black wings.
This led me to wonder if perhaps I was thinking about Grey Day in an entirely unfair light (so to speak). Grey is beautiful. To prove it, just look at these black and white photos of the chimpanzees. Removing the distraction of color can be a special thing. With the photos of the chimps, I just want to study them a little bit longer, and I notice features that maybe I would overlook in the same photo saturated with color.
So, today, we embrace the grey.
Jamie:
Jody:
Missy:
Go behind the scenes with a photographer at Chimpanzee Sanctuary Northwest and find out the secret of the “serious” photos taken of a chimpanzee named Burrito.
Chimpanzees are not known for being delicate, but Annie somehow manages to be graceful and elegant, particularly when she is having a quiet moment to herself.
