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3rd Place:Chimpanzees - appetite for more (Lisbeth Landstrøm)

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My photo is taken in Copenhagen Zoo - in the house of the chimpanzees. It is taken without flash with my Konica Minolota Z3 - which is not very light sensitive. Although the technical quality of the photo in many aspects is horrible I like the rough look which is still there after a treatment in Photoshop Elements.

Chimpanzees are like humans - just peel of a thin layer of any of us and you have a chimpanzee :-) Therefore: having a brief look at a chimpanzee is like having a deep look into a human. The photo shows a chimpanzee and her baby. It contains one striking congruity: 2 individuals so close - and yet so (apparently) distant. The mothers head is bowed - hiding her actual mood. At first she seems worn out and depressed. However if you see her and her baby together as a symbol, they show through the babys playful expression one of the true natures of any life: the allways underlying and unspoilt "appetite for more".


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Phil Douglis25-Sep-2005 23:51
Third Place Winner: Pbase Challenge #1.

Lisbeth Landstom's "Chimpanzees" is a deeply moving image. The key is the abstraction provided by the body language of the mother. She covers her face with her hand. Is she expressing concern? Thought? Is she hiding, or as Lisbeth suggests, possibly depressed or exhausted? The more questions this image asks, the more answers it demands from the viewer.

The incongruity of an animal expressing such human emotions give this image its expression. The mother is the subject of Lisbeth's image, the baby providing its context. The baby's expression is one of trust, yet the size incongruity between mother and baby suggests vulnerability. While this image is all about animal behavior, the values it expresses are deeply human. Concern, thought, vulnerability are all human values, too. As Lisbeth implies in her caption, humans are essentially a layer of skin away from the chimpanzee. We can easily relate to this relationship between mother and its child and all of the questions it asks -- questions that make this remarkable image the third place winner of Pbase Challenge #1.