If you want to photograph apes, first go see them in a zoo, in the early morning or the late afternoon. They’ll generally sleep all day once they’ve had breakfast. Zoo gorillas don’t look like wild gorillas. They’re fat, they’ve got skin worn off, the hair doesn’t look as good — they just don’t have that mojo. But if you go when they’re active, and if you watch them long enough, you’ll see their personalities and you can play with your technique without spending a lot of time or money.

One of the best things to know is that you’ve got to keep non-aggressive body language, knowing that animals are totally keyed to that. I keep my shoulders down and don’t make eye contact. I don’t push them, I let them come to me. I don’t point my camera all the time, and I actually make my decisions before I shoot the pictures — I’m being very passive, and I think, okay, there’s a picture I like. I slowly bring the camera up and shoot, but I don’t stare. I can stare through my camera, because they can’t tell I’m staring, but I don’t want to stare with my eyes. They’ll tell me with body language and barks if I’m doing bad things. If a female doesn’t like what I’m doing, she’ll definitely bark and look at me like, okay, the next time you mess up I’m calling in the big dog.

I’d say 90% of the pictures I’ve shot of apes have not been good technically.Of course, then 90 percent of the 10 percent is boring. So I get 1% maybe, is that confusing enough! You’re going to overexpose your pictures, because the camera gets fooled by the black hair — your apes will be gray, like in that Michael Crichton book. What I do is take a reading off something neutral that’s in the same light as the animal. In the forest, there’s green vegetation, which is much closer to a gray card than a black ape. And then almost never photograph an ape if his head is down, because he’s got no eyes — you’ve got to have a little catch light in the eyes. And if they’re up in a tree, you’ve got a black animal against a white sky — which is just impossible.

I wouldn’t recommend using flash with any of the apes. First, I don’t think they like it. I tried it — I asked Jane Goodall if I could use flash, and she said let’s see how they feel about it. Well, every time I flashed Goblin, he looked at me like, the next time you do that, it’s your ass. Or your head, but something’s coming off. The other chimps didn’t care at all, but I looked at the pictures and it just doesn’t look good. Chimps have light colored skin under their black hair and the flash lights it up. You’re going to get better pictures struggling with low light levels and making that work for you than trying to use flash.

Mountain Gorillas

Mountain gorillas spend a huge amount of time on the ground, so you’re photographing them close to you. You can get within 15 feet of them as a tourist — and you won’t even need a 300, you’ll do fine with a 200mm lens. You can sit with them and be part of the family with mountain gorillas. You’re like a street shooter, but you’ve got to keep your etiquette correct, because you’re with the family and the boss is letting you be there.

Once a baby gorilla stole my gloves — it’d been doing it every day, and the environment really stung your hands if you touched things. I thought, I’m not going to let you do that again, so I grabbed the glove away from him. Which was a really stupid thing to do. I mean, I had 20 gorillas on top of me in about thirty seconds, all looking like, okay, now we’re going to rip you to shreds. I just laid down and whimpered, and it all worked out okay. But I realized you definitely can’t mess with the kids. The only ones who can discipline the kids are mom herself, and the big boss. Even other gorillas or chimps can’t discipline somebody else’s infant. So you’ve really got to pay attention to the etiquette of the group. That’s the key to photographing them.

Lowland Gorillas

Lowland gorillas aren’t habituated, and they’ve been hunted throughout their range, so they’re really shy. When you watch them, you’re trying to hide from them. They’re vision is so good, though, that they’re going to find you, and when they do, you don’t want to look too threatening. And that’s part of my success — when they do see me, I’m just not a threat.

There’s only one lowland gorilla that you can get close to, and he decides that himself. So I wouldn’t recommend trying to find Ebobo. I spent two months to get two hours with Ebobo, and it happened by his choice. He came in and found us, and we were able to go out with him.

In most of the pictures of lowland gorillas I’ve done, I sit in a tree in a place that they like to come to and use 600 and 1200mm lenses. There are some places in Northern Congo that you can go do that: the Mbeli Bai in Nouabalé-Ndoki Park, and the Lokwe Bai in Odzala National Park — but both of these are in a war-torn country that it takes some serious creativity to get to.

Chimpanzees

{You’re not going to find many chimps in zoos, because they’re so close to humans that they’re pretty angry in zoos. They throw shit a lot. There simply aren’t really that many great chimp exhibits.} Try Topeka, Detroit, North Carolina, and Tampa’s Busch gardens. In the wild, you can go to places where scientists study them. There are several places where they’ve been habituated just for tourists. Try Tanzania, the Democratic Republic of Congo, and Uganda. If you do your research you can find the places.