Visit to the Zoo (About Photography)
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- Grandad
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Visit to the Zoo (About Photography)
Went to a local wild animal park on Wednesday hoping to get some good animal shots. Well, the whole park was inundated with wasps so it was not a very comfortable experience, and Mrs G got stung.
We did the 1 hour African Experience in the back of an old army Bedford travelling slowly around ‘the plains’ with many free ranging groups of African Plain animals, except predators of course. They were secure in caged enclosures.
This was at Port Lympne, one of two parks in South Kent operated by the Aspinall Foundation. The foundation is a charity with defined aims of breeding endangered species and putting them back into their natural habitat. Personally, I DO find all the conservation efforts futile. Vast sums of money are invested in repatriating a few animals whose chances of long term survival are very low. I have to ask why has a species declined in the first place and is putting a few back likely to turn events that caused the decline in the first place? I very much doubt it.
Anyhow, enough of my pessimism. If you Google Aspinallfoundation you can see all the animals that they have, mostly in breeding programmes.
I went home with only about 70 shots, mostly boring pictures of grazing animals and well over half of those I binned. I have picked out these three as examples for photography discussion.
As I said, the predatory animals were caged with substantial steel fencing with approx 6cm square mesh. Always difficult but if you use a long lens, set to aperture priority with a large aperture, focus manually and stand a couple of metres from the fence (you can’t get closer due to a second boundary) you do have a chance of getting a reasonable shot of a head. In this example the steel fence can be seen blue/grey and very OOF framing the image. Not the best result but a fair compromise….
When the vehicle stopped by the Grants Zebras they were in a huddle right close to the lorry. I had a long lens on so had to opt for a few head only shots. I did pull in onto one animal and, as I sometimes like to go to extremes, the resulting image would make quite a good poster, I think….
The rhinos were also close by and in a grazing group facing in all directions. By very close cropping I was able to isolate this specimen as if he was all alone.
We did the 1 hour African Experience in the back of an old army Bedford travelling slowly around ‘the plains’ with many free ranging groups of African Plain animals, except predators of course. They were secure in caged enclosures.
This was at Port Lympne, one of two parks in South Kent operated by the Aspinall Foundation. The foundation is a charity with defined aims of breeding endangered species and putting them back into their natural habitat. Personally, I DO find all the conservation efforts futile. Vast sums of money are invested in repatriating a few animals whose chances of long term survival are very low. I have to ask why has a species declined in the first place and is putting a few back likely to turn events that caused the decline in the first place? I very much doubt it.
Anyhow, enough of my pessimism. If you Google Aspinallfoundation you can see all the animals that they have, mostly in breeding programmes.
I went home with only about 70 shots, mostly boring pictures of grazing animals and well over half of those I binned. I have picked out these three as examples for photography discussion.
As I said, the predatory animals were caged with substantial steel fencing with approx 6cm square mesh. Always difficult but if you use a long lens, set to aperture priority with a large aperture, focus manually and stand a couple of metres from the fence (you can’t get closer due to a second boundary) you do have a chance of getting a reasonable shot of a head. In this example the steel fence can be seen blue/grey and very OOF framing the image. Not the best result but a fair compromise….
When the vehicle stopped by the Grants Zebras they were in a huddle right close to the lorry. I had a long lens on so had to opt for a few head only shots. I did pull in onto one animal and, as I sometimes like to go to extremes, the resulting image would make quite a good poster, I think….
The rhinos were also close by and in a grazing group facing in all directions. By very close cropping I was able to isolate this specimen as if he was all alone.
Grandad
- Kiya
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Thank you for sharing your African Experience with us.
Fraid to say I wouldn't have stayed long enough as you & Mrs G did to take 1 photo....not with all em wasps around hope Mrs G is OK.
Love all your animal photos especially the detail in the rhino he/she looks quite happy munching away
Fraid to say I wouldn't have stayed long enough as you & Mrs G did to take 1 photo....not with all em wasps around hope Mrs G is OK.
Love all your animal photos especially the detail in the rhino he/she looks quite happy munching away
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- FABlux
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I guess wasps feel at home in zoo's.I got stung on the front of my throat walking into Marwell once. The first aiders were very good when the throat started closing up
I hear what you are saying Horus but some schemes do work. Marwell had a wonderful breeding programme for przewalski's horses, they were reintroduced to their natural environment after it become a safe haven again following conflict in the region which had critically endangered them.
I love the photo's, especially the zebra
I hear what you are saying Horus but some schemes do work. Marwell had a wonderful breeding programme for przewalski's horses, they were reintroduced to their natural environment after it become a safe haven again following conflict in the region which had critically endangered them.
I love the photo's, especially the zebra
- Horus
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- Kiya
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Grandad great minds think alike.........yours is much better
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Grandad - Am seeing your Zebra and raising you one! Yours is much better than the Ikea one and your photo inspired me to go to the photo of the zebra I took at the Honolulu Zoo in Hawaii. I'd taken a full body Zebra but after seeing how you cropped down your photo I copied your idea and definitely improved mine. Thanks for the inspiration!
!
!
- Bearded Brian
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Love both zebra pictures - LLL at first thought yours might have been better with both eyes but have decided that one eye is better. Went through all my zebra pictures but none could be cropped to give a good result - I'll just have to go back to Kenya (or Whipsnade Zoo). Any way here's my contribution from a zoo in Thailand.
- Kiya
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Wow! that is a great close up,I'm amazed at the detail
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