My short series focuses on the aged male Lion, those who are too old to head a pride or belong to one.   The Lion is graceful in old age, their body a testament to the fights and power they enjoyed in their youth.

Introducing my Old King series, I hope you enjoy.

These images (as are all of them) are also now available JUST as photographic prints.  Click on the photos for details.

See here for all the current March winners.

I was also recently published in Yes Magazine in their recent edition focusing on “Can Animals Save Us”.   Yes Magazine is an awesome ad free journal focusing on building a just and sustainable world.  In this particular issue, articles were donated by Jane Goodall, Robert Sapolsky and Marc Bekoff.   You can view the website (and my photos) for Yes Magazine here.

My image of a Baboon (Pray) taken at Taronga Zoo was used to compliment the article by Robert Sapolsky.

And my image “Thoughts” of a female Orangutan from Melbourne Zoo was also used in an article about giving nature legally recognised rights.

Many thanks to Charles McKean for contacting me and to the editors for letting me say what I wanted to say.

Edge

On The Edge

“Edge” is a bit of an anomaly in my collection of zoo photographs.  In order to avoid including typical ‘zoo’ signs in my photos, I generally stick to close up animal portraiture, taking care to edit out any man made signs that I was not able to exclude while taking the shot in-camera.

In the case of “Edge’ though, I wanted the image to work symbolically, with the lone Orangutan on the edge of the zoo platform representing the species itself on the edge of extinction.  With this in mind it didn’t really matter that I was forced to include some unnatural habitat in the shot, as it worked just as well thematically as an obvious ‘zoo’ shot.

Editing wise I still had a lot of work to do.  The Orangutan and platform was covered in bright straw, and there was a distracting doorway to the rear of the animal.  I used Photoshop CS3 to carefully clone out the straw on the ape’s back area and cropped the image so that the doorway was no longer part of the frame.   The platform’s straw could not be cloned out completely so I burnt the corner of the image using the burn tool in Photoshop.

I was lucky when it came to the lighting,  but felt that as an image it did not work as well as it could.   I chose a sepia action in Adobe Lightroom as the base of my colourisation and then played with the saturation and tone to produce a treatment  that felt timeless, but not overdone.

While the position of the Orangutan on the ‘edge’ was vital to the image, I also needed her expression to be as clear and powerful as possible – so I transferred the image back to Photoshop and opened up the highlights on the face using the Shadow/Highlight tool and sharpened the eye area with unsharp mask.

Lastly, I added a slight vignette around the image in Lightroom using a custom preset.

“Edge” was shot with a Canon EOS 50D & a Canon 70-200mm F4 L Lens.

Natalie Manuel is  a self taught, award-winning photographer.  Her work has been published and exhibited locally and internationally.  She mainly photographs zoo animals but also enjoys photographing dogs.

Text copyright Digital Photography + Design magazine.

Don’t worry, I am not about to chuck in the animal photography so I can be the next Anne Geddes, I just had the opportunity to photograph my extremely photogenic cousin Phoebe at her Christening and couldn’t resist.  Enjoy.

All photos taken with my Canon 50D & the nifty fifty (50mm 1.8)

Phoebe Phoebe Phoebe Phoebe Phoebe Phoebe

Protection

This is a new favourite of mine. Don’t forget it’s the Year of the Gorilla!

Click for info on buying this image.

This is my first image of a Silvery Gibbon.  Rare within Zoos, only 33 worldwide are held outside Indonesia.     This particular Gibbon is one of two at Taronga Zoo in Sydney, Australia, though I believe the only Austalian breeding pair is at Perth Zoo, Western Australia.    While I have previously photographed White Cheeked and Siamang Gibbons, there is something just a little more beautiful about the Silvery Gibbon.

They are also known as the Javan Gibbons, but the Silvery name reflects their beautiful silvery-grey coat.  It’s quite a sight to behold in person.    Like the other Gibbons,  they live in family groups, but it is the female Silvery Gibbon that sings, the male only joining in occasionally.

It would be nice to be able to provide some hopeful statistics but these beautiful primates have only a 50% chance of being around in 10 years.   These aren’t empty threats that aren’t going to come true – these animals will not be here if humans do not try to save them, because it us that is killing them.  There are around 2000 Silvery Gibbons left altogether in the wild.  That’s it.

So why are the Silvery Gibbons under threat?  Similar reasons to Orangutans and other primates – habitat destruction by humans.  Their most direct threat is logging & palm oil production.    But the saddest fact that despite numbers being so low, another of their threats is the exotic pet trade. Human selfishness at its worst.

So enough with the bad news – what can you do?

There is a Silvery Gibbon Project being run out of Perth, Australia.    They support the Javan Gibbon Centre in Java -

“The aim of the centre is to rehabilitate ex-captive gibbons, returning them to full physical and psychological health and to encourage captive breeding based on sound conservation principles, established husbandry techniques and veterinary protocols, with a view to releasing suitable pairs and family groups into suitable protected habitat.”

They also have a little fundraising campaign going that we could all easily take part in – Go Without For Gibbons.

Spread the word – it is not just the well known primates like Orangutans and Gorillas that need our help.

Here’s a link on how to avoid palm oil as well – shopping guide.

Some good news!   A few pieces of my work will be included as part of an exhibition to take place in Massachusetts, USA during July.  Two of the pieces will be available for purchase.

Below is the press release and the chosen images.

PRESS RELEASE:

“Animals and their Belief Systems?”

This exhibition, which opens July 1, 2009 at the Oxbow Gallery in Northampton, Massachusetts, is a group show featuring very diverse and ground-breaking works by ten artists from across the United States and abroad. The theme of the exhibition, animals and their inner worlds, was selected by the show’s curator, Susan White, one of the newer members of The Oxbow Gallery. The gallery hours are Thurs-Sun from 12pm-5pm and the Opening Reception is scheduled for Friday June 10, 5pm-9pm in order to segue with Northampton’s traditional Arts Night Out! For more information on the gallery, visit www.oxbowgallery.com.

Ms. White’s motivation for putting together a thematic group show was grounded in her desire to bring a broader range of artistic experiences to the Pioneer Valley, an area particularly rich with creative energy, but always welcoming of new and fresh ideas. Two of the participating artists live in New York, two in Boston, one is from Easthampton, another from Seattle and still another from Australia. There are three gallery members whose work is also represented in the show.

“Animals and Their Belief Systems?” is a question, not a description, for a reason. We can’t know what animals believe or if they are even capable of belief. We can only speculate. However, the process of speculation forces creative exploration and this is what humans do best. The show seeks to address certain mysterious behaviors of animals which defy Darwinian dogma. We know that animals emote, some have the capacity to heal their own as well as other species (slugs and dolphins both do this). Numerous species employ language, some use tools, others can sing and dance. They are capable of empathy and can form deep and meaningful relationships with their own and other species. Many mourn their dead and still others engage in ritual behaviors explicable only with the context of belief, possibly even self-consciousness and creativity.  The works in this exhibition have been carefully selected by the curator to expose or cause us to question our assumptions of human emotive and intellectual superiority, and its often too violent results:  the mindless cruelty and brutal misuse of our fellow sentients.

SUE COE– Sue Coe is one of the most important politically oriented artists living in the U.S. today. From the outset of her career working as an illustrator for such publications as the New York Times and Time Magazine, Coe was committed to reaching a broad audience through the print media. Later, she began creating extended visual discourses on subjects (such as racial discrimination or animal rights) that she felt were not being adequately addressed by conventional news organizations. Widely written about and exhibited, Coe has appeared on the cover of Art News and been the subject of a retrospective exhibition at the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden in Washington, D.C. Her work is in the collections of many major museums, including the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Museum of Modern Art in New York. (This biography was taken from the Galerie St. Etienne’s website, where Sue Coe is currently represented).

NATALIE MANUEL—Natalie Manuel lives and works in Australia. She is a photographer of the animal spirit with an extraordinary gift of capturing her subjects in startling poses of pensiveness and deep feeling , the result of which is to undermine the viewers assumptions about the limits of animal cognition and emotion. One cannot look at a photograph by Natalie, without a pang of recognition and awe. They are us, and we are they.

CHARLES JONES– The work of Charles Jones is primarily concept based, with subjects derived from history and, in the case of the Accord Group / ‘Kyoto’, specific pressing environmental issues facing the globe. He is currently working on a series of proposals for “remote” monuments to historic figures that address the elastic and unreliable nature of history. Mr. Jones just completed his second solo show at the Boston Sculptors Gallery last November and is now collaborating with sculptor David Phillips on a group of sculptural shelter forms for Spectacle Island in Boston Harbor.

KAREN MOSS—Karen Moss is an exceptionally talented artist who has been working in the Boston area for many years. She received her degree in 1966 from the Rhode Island School of Design and then went on to receive her MFA in Painting from Tufts University and the Boston Museum of Fine Arts in 1974. Since then, she has exhibited widely, with one person shows throughout New England, as well as in New York City and San Francisco. Her pieces are in a number of major museum collections, including the Boston Museum of Fine Arts. Moss’s work poses questions about what the future might hold in a world increasing enthralled with genetic manipulation of animals using human DNA. Sue Coe’s work, particularly “Xenotransplanton” ,also in the show, deals directly with this disturbing trend as well.

SUSAN McDONALD WHITE—Susan White is an artist, writer and fine arts conservator. She received her undergraduate degrees in chemistry and art history at Duke University and then went on to receive her M.S. degree in fine art conservation, doing internships at the National Gallery of Art and the Smithsonian and then moving on to do research as a Frolich Fellow at the Metropolitan Museum in NYC. At 27, Susan had a radical change of heart, putting her conservation career on hold and deciding to go to art school at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston. Soon after, she received her MFA in Sculpture from Mass College of Art. After teaching for a of year, Susan decided to move back to NYC where she made art and taught at the Henry Street Settlement. Susan has exhibited widely in New England, but also internationally. She now lives in Holyoke MA, where she makes her art, writes, and oversees her private art conservation business.

NANCY HOWARD SMITH—Nancy Howard Smith is primarily an accomplished landscape painter who lives in Holyoke, Massachusetts and has been a member of the Oxbow Gallery for many years. Nancy also creates provocative sculpture, one which is being made for this exhibition and promises to be a most fascinating work about the social life of crows.

BARBARA HADDEN—Barbara Hadden was born in 1955 in Hamburg, Germany, and spent her childhood in Europe and the Middle East. She studied painting, photography and filmakking at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, where she received a diploma in 1977. She was awarded an Alumni Traveling Fellowship from the school in 1995 for her photographic work. She is also known for her beautiful and nearly abstract landscape paintings which blow color and movement from the canvas with remarkable skill and confidence.

SARAH DILLON–Sarah Dillon grew up in Yakima, WA where, as a teenager, she dreamed of being a professional artist.  She received her BA from the University of Puget Sound in Tacoma, WA. Dillon currently operates a freelance teaching artist business in Seattle, teaching privately as well as contracting on projects with organizations such as Seniors Making Art, a non-profit organization started by Dale Chihuly, and Art With Heart, using art as a means for self expression and healing amongst disabled or terminally ill children.  Dillon is the acting director and a current board member for Gallery 110 and teaches drawing and design as an adjunct faculty member at Green River Community College.

TESIA VOLKER–Tesia Volker is honored to be a part of this show. She just accidentally took some good photos of a brilliant turtle, and also happened to witness a couple of extraordinary events involving animals. She hopes that large reptiles will not take over the planet. If they do, she will just keep making art and hope they leave her alone.

Share and Enjoy:

Those of us who are nature/zoo/wildlife photographers always tend to have that one species that means more than the others, that may even have lead us to become photographers in the first place. For me, Lions were a childhood passion (only just exceeded by my love of Collies who also happen to have manes!) From the time I saw the movie Born Free and the story of Elsa, I thought they were the most beautiful animals on the planet. While Lions don’t have the exotic colours or stare of the Tiger or the magical quality of the elusive Snow Leopard, they have always had more of a personal link with human beings, and being the only big cats who live amongst and need their own species, they are in many ways easier to understand.

Lions have had an interesting and troubled relationship with human beings throughout history. Their status as the undisputed “King of the Beasts” has made them a target for the human ego, having long been hunted so that men could prove or increase their social status. They have been hunted, tamed and tormented for circuses, feared as man-eaters, used in Lion baiting blood sports – you name it and we’ve done it to them.

Yet on the other side of this, as a cultural icon Lions have enjoyed quite a positive and unique status. They have represented nobility, strength, royalty and bravery all over the world for thousands of years with carvings dating as far back as over 32,000 years. Depictions of the Lion as representing Christ can also be found throughout the literary world, the most famous being the wise and compassionate Aslan from CS Lewis’ The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe.
Of all the big cats, Lions capture our emotions and imagination like no others – and in modern times the Youtube phenomenon of Christian the Lion is a result of this long time fascination we have with the King of the cats.

It is a particular genetic mutation of the normal Lion – the White Lion, that has also been the subject of human fascination. Once thought to be a mystical legend, White Lions are indeed real, but are not ‘man made’ like the Liger and Tigon hybrids. They have occured naturally in the wild due to a rare recessive gene. Almost all sightings of the White Lions were at Timbavati Game Reserve in South Africa, the most notable pride being recorded by Chris McBride in his book The White Lions of Timbavati.

Considering the fuss we’ve made over normal lions, it comes as no surprise that the White Lions have had all manner of meanings and symbolism attributed to them. A book written by Linda Tucker is dedicated to the legend surrounding the Lions and the question of their sacredness. The Shamens (including the well known Credo Mutwa) that she spoke to believed they were sent by God as a representation of goodness and enlightenment and as a guide to humanity in crucial times. While the scientific amongst us will cringe at the idea that the White Lion is anything more than the result of a rare genetic mutation, it is interesting to consider how the White Lion’s rarity and beauty has been the center of many an imagination even before their very existence was confirmed.

As usual with human beings though, we have managed to simultaneously revere and destroy the White Lion. The species is at the center of ‘canned hunts’, a practice that involves breeding animals in captivity and releasing them in contained areas where they cannot escape so they can be killed by trophy seeking idiots with too much money. Almost all White Lions alive today were bred in captivity, the lucky ones and most, by contemporary Zoos. Having technically been extinct in the wild for years, it is only recently that conservation efforts have been successful and wild White Lions have been born in the Greater Timbavati region.
Sanbona Wildlife Reserve in South Africa has been running a project since 2003 with the long term intention of having a number of Wild Lions roaming completely free. I had a quick chat with Simon who works at the reserve and has been lucky enough to witness the wild White Lions in the flesh.

Tell us how you got involved with the project?

I have been in the hospitality industry for 20 years, the last 5 of those working on game reserves, A position became open at my current place and I jumped at the chance to work on this amazing property. The property is called Sanbona wildlife Reserve and is a 54000ha resrve that is roughly the same size as Singapore.

How and why did the project begin?

The project was started six years ago when our MD was given 2 tame white lions – Jabu and Queen. These 2 lions will never be realeased into the wild as they would not survive. They however have had a litter and it is these white lions that have been released. There are 2 males and 2 females in the wild and we released them with 2 tawny females. The tawny females have taught the white lions to hunt. They are now a self sustaining pride who hunt for themselves.
One white male and one white female has a radio collar so we are able to track their movements.

I feel there was a need for the project as all other breeding programs where made to breed these animals for circuses of even worse for hunters. As a conservation company our aim was to breed these animals do they could be freed into the wild.

So what’s next for these Lions?

The next stage of the program is to get the new integrated pride to breed and have there own litter. Going forward if this works we will look at relocating true wild white lions to some of our sister reserves in South Africa

Do you need any public help or support?

Surprise I not going to ask for money we are one of the largest Hospitality group in South Africa so all funding comes from head office

Hope this spreads some light on our white lions!

Thanks Simon!

For more info and images on White Lions.

Global White Lion Protection Trust

My White Lion Image Collection

This is the future we’re facing – entire species of animals that will only exist in captivity. No more Sumatran Tigers (heck there’s only 500 or less of them left altogether in the wild), Orangutans, Gorillas, Lions….. What then, of the fate of the various species that are difficult to breed or happily raise in captivity?

It was at this point I began considering the last two Flamingos in Australia – most likely the last two Flamingos we will ever have due to stricter quarantine restrictions. While there are millions of Flamingos world-wide, they are still listed as threatened (not quite endangered but close to it) due to (surprise) man. Their breeding sites are vanishing, down to an estimated 30 locations worldwide. One of the reasons Adelaide Zoo’s Flamingos will be the last is because it proved quite difficult to breed the Flamingos in captivity. Why? Because they often will only happily breed in their natural environment – this generally meaning flocks of thousands (or at least many more than ‘two’) and appropriate gender ratios. Taronga Zoo in Sydney tried putting a whole bunch of mirrors in their enclosure to make it seem like there were thousands (and this has worked in other zoos) but nothing happened despite the creativity of their solution.

While thankfully the Flamingo is not close to vanishing from the planet, they will soon vanish from Australia. If you are near Adelaide, check them out – they are a delight to watch and photograph.

The blog (or photos) won’t be updated for about two weeks as I am going on a mini-tour of some Australian Zoos to photograph some interesting species that I don’t have a chance to see here in Melbourne. I am especially looking forward to the amazing White Lions, and some Chimpanzees! Wish me luck for some nice weather

In the meantime, a new(ish) pic of a Black & White Colobus.

Black & White Colobus