Some nights it is just fun to dust off the camera and lens and wander a zoo. Hogle Zoo hosted a Zoo Brew recently, and it lets adults enjoying adult beverages wander around looking at wild animals in cages. It sounds just like New York’s hottest new club, Yap!
A lion is bored
Although I don’t drink anymore, I do have a fun camera setup and I brought along a lens extender that I bought for the recent solar eclipse. I don’t get to use the extender much, so this was fun!
A lion’s pride
And this visit to the zoo was a chance to see African wildlife, which I didn’t see on my recent trip to Africa. There is a huge difference between animals in the wild and animals in pens and cages.
Elephant eating
Elephant
I don’t create black and white photography very often. I am a big fan of color and beautifully saturated images… that is how I see the world. However, sometimes a photograph is just asking for black and white. A Rhino is 90% there anyway.
Rhino in black and white
A bald eagle hides behind a branch
I love this photograph of a tiger sitting outside the door. It just looks like a family wakes up one day to find a tiger waiting outside for some food, or to devour grandma. Maybe it is the sequel to Goldilocks.
Mommy, can I play with the kitty outside the door?
A cheetah ready to snack
To photograph wildlife, you really need a long, long lens. Those lenses are very expensive! Some of those lenses are the price of a used car. These are the 400mm lenses you see at the side of football games. I don’t have that budget or the need for a lens so I buy a lens extender to get me closer, with a few sacrifices such as the amount of light and a little sacrifice of sharpness. But I save myself $12,000.
Ostrich on the move
A pensive moment
Call be Bob the Gorilla
My finger smells like banana
And during the evening I bumped into a number of friends and Facebook friends. Woo hoo!
I happened upon some friends
Tiger peers around the corner and a future lunch
This bear was particularly fun to watch. He was chewing on this bone for a bit and then walked around the pen. Most the animals were content to lay down all day and sleep.
Human, the other white meat
The bear necessities
And finally, we have a baby Zebra. Or as the British call it… zebra. Americans and Brits pronounce it quite differently.
A baby zebra longs for SnapChat
