His yard teems with life. Deep-green leafy trees, lush shrubs and flowering plants dominate what space a small tortoise-filled pond leaves free. There’s even a civet somewhere. But no sooner am I inside his house, photographer Omar Ariff Kamarul Ariffin closes the windows and the glass door and turns on the air-conditioner.

He’s found me out. True, I am a lover of nature when humidity doesn’t cling like an unwanted second skin and the ambient temperature hovers only few degrees above 20oc. So Omar’s collection of very captivating photos in ‘Pusaka Bumi: Malaysia’s Legacy of Nature’ offers the right vehicle to transport any spoilt latte-drinking person into our country’s natural (but sadly underappreciated) wonderland.

The collection of 160 full colour photographs includes pictures of local flora, fauna and pan shots of our majestic landscapes. But it’s the non-vegetable that arrests attention. It’s as if Omar has invited each creature for a sitting in his studio. A private shoot with all the proper lighting equipment. Undistracted the orang utan looks at the camera and is captured in the middle of a quiet thought. The small herd of Bornean pygmy elephants stares at the camera posing for a family portrait. The bearded pig, in a mud facial, looks up and smiles with pouty Angelina Jolie lips.

‘Eye contact is very important, you know,’ says Omar and shrugs his shoulders, tips his head, looks me in the eye for all explanation. Or emphasis. Yes, the eyes communicate. An emotional bond is forged between the subject and the viewer when they look eyeball-toeyeball.

And suddenly ordinary pictures of animals become surprising portraits of seemingly sentient creatures caught in the in-between moments of their measured lives. Omar also has some wonderful portraits of people he encountered on the Petronas expeditions to Siberia and Africa. (He was the official photographer on both treks. He is now the official photographer for Sepang International Circuit).

His photos tell so much. The slice in time hints of a back story and suggests what happens the moment after. Even when he takes his pictures from inside a vehicle and with little or no time to interact with the subject. He says, ‘I prefer to take pictures of people as they are. I don’t get them to pose.’ Yet in many of his portraits, the subjects are looking right into the camera. They are relaxed and not self-conscious, as if accustomed to scrutiny under searching eyes, under spotlight and camera. He points out, ‘You must remember I have these powerful telephoto lenses.’

But surely even lenses can only do so much. Some intangible quality in his photos lifts them above the prosaic. Omar says, ‘I can teach anyone to take a photograph. But I can’t teach the art of seeing.’ And he has been seeing, living and rubbing shoulders with art for a while. His father was a former Chairman of the National Art Gallery who collected art, wrote poetry and invited artist friends to his home. The stimulation must have seeped into him, and although he didn’t plan on a career in art and photography, it took hold and blossomed.

‘I studied cooking for two years in the UK. I taught scuba-diving,’ he says. Then one thing led to another and now photography fulfills his artistic life. Omar is a natural photographer in every sense. While he has as many pictures of F1 and motorbike races, clearly his heart inclines towards the great outdoors. ‘I enjoy nature because it is unpredictable. I can go for an hour or two-trek but I’m not sure what I’m going to see,’ he reveals. Out there in the untamed, he gets to be surprised by animals and insects in their still-quite pristine habitats. He even picks up some of their more unusual facets.

For instance the tell-tale signs of an imminent elephant attack. “When an elephant looks at you and flaps its ears, beware,” he says as he holds his hands up to the sides of his head and flaps them like makeshift gigantic ears. “Then it will stamp and brush the ground with its front legs,” he continues as he paws the air with his hands. “Then it turns around, giving you his behind.” Omar turns. “Then suddenly, when you think it’s going away, it swings around and charges.” He wheels around and lunges forward. But not like any elephant I’ve seen.

We may not need his reenactments but we need Omar Ariff, or someone like him, to remind us that in our backyard we’ve some unique landscapes, rare and beautiful creatures and plants. Some even not scientifically identified yet! That we need his self-published coffee table book ‘Corak’ of patterns in nature up close. That we do need nature which has much to stir and feed our curiousity.

We should get away often from our man-made shelters, air-conditioners and brave our way into mossy forests, mangrove swamps, caves, lakes and rivers. We need nature, as American transcendentalist Ralph Waldo Emerson writes because the rays that come it ‘will separate [us] from vulgar things’.