Talk to the Animals

Travels near and far takes us to the zoo this week. The last day of summer vacation before school started, we took two of our grandchildren to the zoo and had an excellent adventure. The weather was nice and cool, perfect for the animals to come out and play.

Okay, so maybe not ALL the animals wanted to play.

The picnic lunch was perfect, too, and there's always ice cream for desert at the concession stand.

The challenge with zoo photography is trying to get a shot of an animal without showing glass, or caging. One trick is getting in close so you can chase out that reflection, or shoot through the wires.

And sometimes there's not much you can do. It depends on your equipment, to some extent. In this case, I just didn't have either enough lens to allow me to zoom in through the bars, or a way to get so close I could actually put the face of my camera between the wires. This was definitely not one of those kinds of photo opportunities, as you can see by the expression on her face!

We enjoyed ourselves so much that we may take another trip to the zoo to practice animal shots, and reacquaint ourselves with the various settings on our cameras. There's a wonderful adventure coming soon and we need some serious photography practice before departing. This photo is a "hint" of stories yet to come!

This shot was taken through the glass of his enclosure, while he was waiting for his lunch to be delivered. I stood at a slight angle, to minimize reflection, and got in close. I was much more confident getting close to glass than I was to the bars of a cage.

On our next great adventure, I wonder what type of shot I'll be able to get! Hint...hint.