OUR COUSINS’ PORTRAITS: MASASHI MOCHIDA
MASASHI MOCHIDA
Like human portraits, monkey portraits can be quite intimate and captivating.
Photographer Masashi Mochida specializes in portraits of Japanese Macaque (Macaca fuscata), a monkey species native to northern Japan. It is the most northern-living non-human primate, surviving winter temperatures of below -15 °C.
Also known as Snow Monkeys, these creatures have beautiful expressive pink faces, surrounded by brown-gray fur. They often seem remarkably human-like. They look a lot like children when they are playing in the snow.
In the wild, Snow Monkeys spend most of their time in forests, feeding on seeds, buds, fruit, invertebrates, berries, leaves, and bark. They also like to hang out in onsen (hot springs).
Mochida, an amateur photographer, from Tokushima Prefecture, Japan, has been obsessed with Snow Monkeys since he first encountered them in Kaminiwa Falls in Okayama province, when he fell in love with a newborn monkey there right after graduating from college.
Self-taught in photography skills and techniques, Mochida points to his unabashed passion for these monkeys, as the reason for his unparalleled portrait excellence.
Mochida often visits the Jigokudani Monkey Park ,Yamanouchi, Nagano Prefecture to see the monkeys as well. He takes his photos over the 3 winter months during time off from his job as a civil engineer.
While his portraits are powerful, winning numerous awards, photography is not Mochida’s chief mission. His primary motivation is to be near these monkeys, to experience them in the wild, to be close enough to hear them breathe.
He photographs them simply because he wants to see them later, when he is at home as well. He observes them very carefully, perhaps more carefully than anybody else does. He can distinguish one individual monkey from another. He can understand characteristics of each one, to some degree.
Mochida can often predict what a young monkey will do in the next moment, which enables him to capture the best moments better than the other photographers can.
He can feel the monkeys, so he can feel when one will do something interesting. He has found that the baby monkey’s behavior is similar to that of a human baby.
Machida has won numerous awards for his Snow Monkey portraits, including the prestigious Nature’ Best Photography Award sponsored by the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History.
Read more about Powerful Portraits all this week on BeautifulNow. And check out more beautiful things happening now in BN Wellness, Impact, Nature/Science, Food, Arts/Design, and Travel, Daily Fix posts.
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