TITLE: Portraits of a Distant Kin

Every three months, I traveled into the jungle to meet the orangutans. Through the lens, I often found something deeply human in them.

Their daily lives mirror our own in uncanny ways. On sunny mornings, they rise at six; on rainy days, closer to ten. They spend their days gathering fruit and their nights building nests to sleep. When they meet your gaze, it feels as though something silent and profound passes between you.

Yet there is one striking difference: orangutans live alone. Aside from the years a mother raises her child, they walk the forest in solitude—always, instinctively, alone.

This is their defining contrast with us. And it is this very solitude that allows something unmistakably human to appear. It’s through that difference, not despite it, that I began to see reflections of ourselves.

I’ve come to realize: the human essence that often hides in portraits of people reveals itself more clearly in the faces of these distant cousins. When that invisible humanity appeared, I pressed the shutter.

Even through a species we parted from 15 million years ago, it is still possible to photograph what it means to be human.

AUTHOR: Shohei Yoshida (Japan)

Meet Shohei Yoshida, a photographer with a passion for telling stories. He learned the ropes of photography at SUNY-Plattsburgh and then dove into Anthropology, studying how people live and connect with their surroundings.

Educationally equipped with a Master's in Anthropology and pursuing a professional career as a commercial photographer, Yoshida recognized the profound connection between the disciplines of Anthropology and Photography. This realization led him to a subject that spoke to him in a unique way – the enigmatic orangutans. These fascinating creatures from Sumatra and Borneo became the focus of his work, blending his love for photography with his understanding of people and cultures.

Starting off in a zoo, Yoshida soon felt that life was too short to stay in one place. He decided to head to Indonesia, seeking out wild orangutans. Borneo was his first stop, but observing orangutans from a boat wasn't enough. He craved a more up-close experience, leading him to Sumatra, where he explored the jungles on foot to snap pictures of orangutans in their natural habitat.

His work isn't just about pretty pictures; it's about sharing the world that spreads inside orangutans' minds and how that interconnects with the outer environments they live in.