Nature feels different when you can actually look it in the eyes.
For more than two years, photographer Tim Flach has been capturing images of rare, threatened, and endangered animals.
Many of Flach’s photos were purposefully framed to resemble portraits of humans, focusing in on the animals’ faces. The effect is striking — there’s a lot of great nature photography out there, but seeing an eagle from a distance and getting to make eye contact are two very different experiences.
After all, there’s some frisson about looking into someone’s eyes — a small thrill, or fear, or excitement that comes from the sudden intimacy.
Capturing that frisson wasn’t always easy, though. Some shots were taken in nature preserves or zoos, but Flach also travelled the world to find his subjects — including the wobbly-nosed saiga below.
Saiga are wild antelope that live near the Caspian Sea, where locals hunt them down on mopeds. In order to get their portrait, Flach originally had travelled to the region in the summer, but the weather ended up being so hot, it actually distorted his pictures of the rare antelope. He had to go back during the (equally harsh) winter to get the shot.
Flach has now turned his project into a book, “Endangered,” which was published by Abrams and is available online. If you want to see more of Flach’s portraits, check out 21 more of them below:
1. Axolotl
2. Beluga sturgeon
3. Bengal tiger
4. Blue-throated macaw
5. Chimpanzee
6. Crowned sifaka lemur
7. Golden snub-nosed monkey
8. Iberian lynx
9. Gharial
10. Lemur leaf frog
11. Mandrill
12. Northern white rhino
13. Philippines eagle
14. Pied tamarin
[rebelmouse-image 19397996 dam=1 original_size=”750×478″ caption=”These monkeys come from a single, tiny area in Brazil. The word “pied” refers to their multicolored heads and bodies. Photo from Tim Flach/Tim Flach Photography Ltd./Abrams, used with permission.” expand=1]
15. Proboscis monkey
16. Ring-tailed lemur
17. Sea angels
18. Shoebill
19. Snow leopard
20. Western lowland gorilla
21. White-bellied pangolin
Flach hopes that by framing these rare and endangered animals in this way, it can help people reconnect with nature.
We come from the natural world and depend on it. As our lives become more digital and removed, we need a way to reconnect to the other animals that share the planet with us.
“The most important message is that it’s not simply images of animals but that every aspect of our being is influenced by the natural world around us,” Flach told The Guardian.
If you want to see more of Flach’s work, follow his Instagram, Facebook, or Twitter, or visit his website. His book, “Endangered,” is available from the publisher’s website.
