Before|After - Ritchie (Patreon)

This is an image that was saved by RAW. In 2013 I had traveled to Malaysian Borneo as part of a fundraising trip for the RSPCA. On the first day there we visited the Semenggoh Nature Reserve which is just out of Kutching. Dominant males need 7km square and will patrol this area, this is one of the main issues with deforestation in Borneo.  Semenggoh is an open reserve which means there are not fences.

This day was probably the hottest I have ever been in my life, the humidity was amazing and I could barely see because of the sweat. The main area is where the females and young orangutan hang out near the main feeding platform, which is great because tourists are guaranteed to see the wildlife. Ritchie however if only there about 1 day in 5 as he is off patrolling his domain, so we did indeed feel lucky when the call came through he was approaching.

The photo above was taken in a hurry and the giant bulk approached, I had a local ranger tugging at my shirt to move. As this is an open reserve Ritchie goes where he likes and the people are herded well out the way. As a result the images was well underexposed, but as I was shooting raw I was able to get all the detail back in the fur and face. If this had of been a JPG the colour noise would have destroyed the image. It was by far the best image I got of him.

Ritchie, when just a young 18 inch tall primate, was squeezed into an 18-inch square cage and put up for sale. Ritchie was rescued and released and is now over 140kg 

The image was used as the cover of the 320 page photojournal I put together of our 2 week trek.