Quite often, photography is just a calling card, an excuse to happen upon something amazing without anyone questioning why I'm still staring.

So it was that I swung by the Indianapolis Zoo one morning. I started at their Simon Skjodt International Orangutan Center, and late in the afternoon, I was still there.

The viewing areas had a section where the orangutans could hop up on a ledge and sit inches away on the other side of the glass. One took an interest in my photo bag, looking intently at what I pulled out. It made hand gestures to tell me to turn my fisheye lens around so it could see the backside. It followed my every move as I swapped lenses. I felt it learning, like it wanted to understand cameras -- or perhaps fooling me when it really wanted to know how lenses tasted.

We spent some time amusing each other, blurring the arrangement about who was on exhibit. And then came the moment when it looked up, right into my eyes and held its gaze, searching for clues about who I really was. The sensation was like a forbidden gaze stumbled into with a fast food counter clerk who forgets to avert her eyes after handing over my burger.

No, I haven't been on the road so long that I'm looking for love in all the wrong places. It was a look of wordless communication. It spoke of confinement, how she wanted to touch me, to explore. Yet the eyes also spoke of merriment, how I looked comical so hairless and gangly legged.

The look grew from the eyes to searching each others faces. I stopped being able to think of the orangutan as an it. It became a she, a person wondering about me even as she revealed herself. I put a palm on the glass against hers. She didn't retract hers, but stared at my fingers, perhaps wondering how I could get by with such sickly little digits.

But the epiphany came later in their computer lab. The orangutans had their own computer, and they used it to match text terms and spoken requests to pictures and symbols. They were not doing tricks for us; they stopped to look over the screen and thinking was as plain as the lack of a nose on their faces. Given all the years I've taught computers, I was amazed to see the same perception, learning, discernment, and finally insight. The recognition of kinship was undeniable.

For days to follow, I thought about the relatives I had chanced upon, and decided to get involved. Those who read my story about the evolutionary origins of music wouldn't be surprised that I started wondering if my new-found kinfolk had primitive vestiges of musical appreciation.

So it was that I contacted Dr. Ron Shumacher, the Zoo Director, and proposed building a music lab for the orangutans. Next I contacted P.D.Q. Bach, alias Peter Shickele (distant modern-day relative), a famous musicologist, and there is now the possibility of a team forming to give the orangutans and us a place where our loneliness as a sentient species may be further assuaged.

People who see me dragging my camera around probably don't suspect how often the camera is dragging me around.