Chimpanzees may get much less hype than the endangered mountain gorillas, but tracking our closest relative through the African jungle is one of the world's most thrilling wildlife encounters. One of the best places to do so is Kibale Forest National Park in Uganda. With chances of seeing them of probably 99%, it is the prime spot to have an encounter. However, its forests are also crowded. With over 50 people send off into the woods each morning at 8 AM there’s nothing transcending there. Let’s say any of those 50 tourists encounter a chimpansee and take a picture. That’s 350 images a week, or over 18 thousand a year. It’s hackneyed and nowhere near outstanding imagery…
When doing my research for this shoot I didn’t find any fine art images of chimpansees. Sure, there’re some clean National Geographic, journalistic images which show a close up encounter of a chimp posing. But a really intimate image of these primates seemed only preserved for the cover of BBC’s “Dynasties”… The goal was to capture that raw, human like emotion we can relate to so much. And chances are you’re not going to find it within well known locations.
In the search for more remote locations I came at a desolated valley within Queen Elizabeth N.P. Although this is one of Uganda’s most known wildlife parks there’s just one chimp family living remotely in the Kyambura Gorge. This gorge is actually drained by River Kayambura and about 100 meters deep. The gorge is another world on its own. While the savannah above has a reasonable amount of light, the tree canopy brings a somewhat mystic feel to the place.
When we actually heard the chimps they were on the other side of the crocodile inhabited river. While walking towards our position we made a judgement call. Using a fallen log as an overpass we crossed the river and hoped we could intercept them. And it worked out. While laying on the ground, the alpha male walked within one feet besides me. The pursuit of this image was relentless and I think we got it. It shows the humanlike charistics from these primates, like we know from Caesar’s Planet of the Apes and the emotion in his eyes is evidently raw.
Jochen van Dijk
Kyambura Gorge, Uganda
22/01/2020