Luke Oppenheimer - Ottuk (MAY 2026 RELEASE)

SHIPPING IN MAY 2026

Published by Aliens in Residence
Photographs by Luke Oppenheimer

45 Color Photographs
90 Pages, 9.2”x11.5”
Hardcover
Edition Size: 750
ISBN: 979-8-9857628-22

About Ottuk:
In the winter of 2021 Luke Oppenheimer travelled to the Tien Shan mountains of Central Kyrgyzstan for one month to cover a story about Ottuk, a small village of shepherds suffering from severe predation on livestock by a growing population of wolves.
Every year wolves eat up to one hundred horses and countless sheep from the village. In the frigid winter months the men of the village venture into the surrounding mountains to hunt the wolves and mitigate their losses. What started out as a month long trip turned into a five year long project about the people of Ottuk as he came to be accepted as a member of the village and adopted by one of the families. His book, “Ottuk”, is a deep dive into the dreams, hardships, joys and sorrows of the villagers, their ancient way of life and the landscape that shaped them.

Artist:
Luke Oppenheimer is a writer and documentary photographer from Oklahoma with a background in sustainable farming and history. His work focuses on human-wildlife conflict, exploring the connections between culture, history, rural livelihoods, and ecology. Luke spends years on his projects, integrating himself into remote communities, learning their languages while living and working alongside the people whose lives he documents. His work has been published in Modern Huntsman Journal and EurasiaNet.org with exhibitions in Picto Gallery in New York City and the Hullet Collection in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Luke currently splits his time between New York City and Nepal.