Posted on February 18, 2025
This week’s challenge is to choose ‘only one picture’. This is something I usually do anyway, thanks to a combination of parsimony and idleness.
Mostly, I just take photographs of things that strike me as interesting or aesthetically pleasing – like most photographers, I suspect.
However, if there is one image in my library that has stayed in my mind in the (many) years since I took it, it’s this image of a caged young chimpanzee in the Al Ain Zoo in the United Arab Emirates. There’s no suggestion that it was being ill-treated, but it looks pretty traumatised to me, and it does raise fundamental questions about the ethics of zoos.

Lens-Artists Challenge: Only One Picture
Category: Uncategorized Tagged: Al Ain Zoo, bars, cage, Chimpanzee, Lens-Artists, Zoo
Posted on September 16, 2013
There are cogent arguments both for and against zoos. But this picture, taken a few years ago, doesn’t do the pro lobby any favours.
Category: Weekly Photo Challenge Tagged: Chimpanzee, Weekly Photo Challenge: Inside, Zoo, zoos