CREATURE'S COIFFURE - Hair, Fur and Style Hairs, meanwhile 220 million years old, are characteristic for mammals. By the "Naked Apes" they are more leftovers of evolution. They are too less, too much or at the wrong place - and as head hair often an expression of animally inferiority complexes. So let's remain with the animals and their dermatological excesses. At least hairs are horn threads mainly existing out of keratin. The spines of a hedgehog are modified hairs, and the horn of a rhinoceros is actually hair, but what a kind of. From an evolutionary point of view the multiple functions of hairs make them so successful. Hairs are not only protection against ultraviolet light or rain, isolation and thermoregulation - furthermore they are camouflage and social statement through impressing manes and threatening hair-raising. Animals display an extraordinary diversity of coiffures, hairdos, fur and style. The dreadlocks of the Hungarian Puli, the angel hair of the Mohair goat, smooth curls of the Highland cattle, the scraggly hair of a Poitou donkey or the artistically fur pattern of a Leopard. They all show us that we, the "Naked Apes" are far away from this kind of evolutionary creativity. Our approach was to photograph this feature like beauty or fashion. So we took the studio light out in the field. The pictures were made in zoos, on farms and at private hobby breeders in Germany and in the Netherlands. For sure all animals are alive, just with the exception of some very close fur patterns. These eight images were photographed at the fur collection of the Senckenberg Museum in Frankfurt. (Polar bear, Ringed seal, Tiger, Leopard, Giraffe, Snow leopard, Zebra duiker and Cheetah)

Magical photos capture the first moments of life ...

***PRETTY UGLY*** "Beauty is in some way boring. Ugliness is unpredictable and offers an infinite range of possibilities." UMBERTO ECO

With this story we want to look at the basics and roots of fashion. Through the viewfinder we studied those who are nearest to us - the Great Apes. Some anthropologists say, that the prehistoric human was not only wearing animal fur for protection, but for dress up themselves and to impress others. This would mean also vanity and not only practical use was playing a role at the beginning of clothes. Is this directly leading into fashion? The fashion designer Karl Lagerfeld once mentioned that the difference between animals and human is the fashion. So, how big is the difference? Our intention is to be aware of the flowing boundaries between us and our wild brothers and sisters - using fashion as a tool. We started giving them leafs, continued with fabric material, and ended up with designer clothes and accessories. In between you find some body studies of the "naked ape". The pictures might look funny and also familiar, but all this has a serious scientific background too. This production was a walk along a borderline. With our pictures we never want to take away the dignity of the apes or be disrespectful. The shootings took place in the Zoo Krefeld, Germany, with three species of Great Apes: Orang Utan, Chimpanzee and Gorilla. The animals were neither tamed nor trained. No person could enter the enclosures while the apes were in. Every piece we wanted to give them was thrown into. Whatever the animals did, they did on their own. Any intervention or directing was impossible. To set the focus on the behaviour of the animals itself we removed the background from the original photographs.

Nearly everyone everywhere on this planet knows this bird. Where pelicans fly there is sun, beach and sea. That many people love him is maybe because he is a kind of a "holiday bird. His physique is unique - literally unmistakable: the tremendous bill, a big pouch, the compact body with a long neck, short legs and duck feet. A little bit of a clown, but also a beautiful and elegant seabird. The old Egyptians knew him as a domestic animal, the Indians used him as help by hunting, and the Muslims canonized him because they believe the pelican helped build the Kaaba of Mecca. In our tradition the pelican is a symbol for strong maternal love. The German theologian Prof. Reinitzer collected more than 300 examples in literature and pictures for the symbolic use of the pelican. The Brown Pelican (Pelecanus occidentalis) settles the Atlantic and Pacific Ocean, and the Golf Coast of North- and South America. In the late 19th and 20th century pelicans were hunted for their soft feathers to wear them on hats. In the days of hunger, after World War I, thousands were slaughtered. In the 70's the population nearly collapsed because of contamination with DDT. Louisiana was left without Pelicans; a real tragedy since the Brown Pelican is the State Bird of Louisiana. In Texas, California and Florida this pelican was on the list of endangered species. Fortunately, several conservation projects helped them survive. Worldwide there exist seven pelican species. For us, the Brown Pelican is the real prototype of a pelican. The images cover the everyday life of a group located near St. Petersburg at Indian Shores, Florida: from special behaviour during the breeding season to all kinds of comfort behaviour like yawing, stretching, grooming, bathing, but also aggressive defense patterns and moods too; elegant flights and clumsy landings; the fight for fish and ... the struggle for life at least.