what I'm shooting when I'm not in Disney World

In the past I've used my local zoo (Brookfield Zoo, located near Chicago) as a camera testing ground before Disney trips. But they have an annual photography contest, and this year I was on a mission to win it.

Ten visits and 3,425 shots later I took second place(or as I consider it, third, because they have a grand prize as well as first). In the process animals have become my favorite subject. Or at least the one that I'm most experienced with. I really didn't know what I was doing my first couple of visits, I just took a lot of pictures and went back over them, figuring out what kind of shots worked and what didn't, and then trying to do more of what worked on future trips.

Basically, in animal photography I now feel like I can hold my own. I see an animal and I know what to do to shoot it. Well, my style is still a bit limited, I tend to stick to portrait style headshots. But I've never really put that kind of work into taking pictures at Disney World. I've taken nearly 4,000 pictures there over three visits, but I've never done the kind of systematic study that I put into zoo shooting. So I'm studying the pictures posted here, and am working on refining my technique for this trip.

BUT ANYWAY, the point of this post.. animal pictures. This is against my usual style, because I typically favor ultra sharp pictures with loads of detail, like being able to make out individual hairs on a big cat. But reducing images down to forum sizes tends to reduce that kind of detail. No complaints, it's just that I've discovered another limitation to my style. Hopefully this will make me pay a bit more attention to composition, and less on my usual sharp detail obsession.

First up is the shot that I won second place with. It was a tactical decision, I wanted to enter a big cat picture with scads of fur detail, but this one was kind of special in the way the bear is looking straight at you, and I knew that they were putting more emphasis on composition and uniqueness than on sharpness.

Next up is a big cat picture. I tend to favor leopards rather than the usual lions and tigers. I would try to enter a leopard next year.. but an amur leopard (the species in the picture) won grand prize THIS year. And it's doubtful they'd let that happen two years in a row. They're still my favorite animal at the zoo though, and I will continue to point my 70-200F4L at them whenever they within range.

The frog is a tomato frog. It was a tough picture, it's in an aquarium, and it tends to hide under things in the shadows. Happily for such occasions we have flashes. I got a great shot of it, and had high hopes until I looked at the full resolution picture. The frog is covered in debris, and when you get down to it it's not so much beautiful as kind of ugly looking. Don't get me wrong, I'm a big amphibian fan and it's a spectacular frog, the eyes in particular are incredible. But I figured a dirty frog just wasn't going to cut it for the contest. They also have what I thought were beautiful blue poison arrow frogs, but I finally got a good picture of them, and it turns out they look humpbacked and kind of awkward. I'm going to continue working the reptiles and amphibians, looking for a possible contest winner because I'd like a less popular type of animal to win. I mean big cats and primates often win, but there weren't any frogs or snakes in the winners this year. All the winners were mammals. They have all these spectacular animals, like really beautiful chameleons, geckos, and some really colorful snakes. But they're all in aquariums that often get dirty, and they all tend to like to hide under leaves and things in the shadows.

Next there's a shot that I didn't dare enter. The lion. I assure you, that is a live lion. It was a bit ominous when it was gone from its enclosure the next time I went to the zoo, but I found out that it had undergone dental surgery and was recovering. It turns out it broke off a canine tooth while chewing on something, and they had to give it a root canal among other things.
Yeah, I'm turning into a zoo geek. I get email news updates from them, and am starting to learn bits of info about some of the individual animals.

Finally we have a wolf. Wolves are also a favorite animal of mine. Okay, I like a lot of animals. That probably has something to do with my taking to animal photography as much as I have. Anyway, their enclosure wasn't designed with my camera equipment in mind. It's a larger outdoors enclosure, designed to allow them to stay farther away from people if they wish. They're trying to avoid having them become used to people. Even with the 1.6 form factor modifyer of my Canon 30D, the 200mm long end of my 70-200 is still far too short to get good shots of the wolves in their usual hangouts. I mean if I severely crop the images I get usable lower resolution images of them, but not my usual goal of oodles of crisp detail. If it has fur, I want it to look so sharp that you'd think you could reach out and pet it.
However I knew that the animals were supposed to be more active earlier in the morning, and one day I came in early and went straight to the wolves. And what do you know, they were walking around, out on patrol as I like to think of it. They were still farther away than the ideal distance, but I got closer than I had before.

Needless to say I'm looking forward to Animal Kingdom this year. The Safari Ride is typically good to me, although the last time I went I always seemed to be seated on the wrong side of the vehicle (not that that one side is necessarily worse than the other, but each time I went all the action was on the other side of the vehicle). I also intend to spend some quality time in the walking tour areas.

But more than anything I'm determined to develop my skills in the rest of Disney World. I can't treat the castle the same way I do a frog, I know that. But SOME of my experience from this summer has to carry over.

 

I'm only arriving on Sunday, so I'll miss the AK meets altogether. On Sunday I'll basically be heading straight from the airport to the Magic Kingdom to try to make your photo tour as it is.

If I was going to be there I'd be game though. It'd be really interesting to see what we each produce out of basically the same opportunities.

 

Dan,

First, congrats on your photo contest win!

I like your photos a lot, and especially your wolf photo. Most of the time we don't want anything blocking the view of the animal, but in this case I like the dandelions in front.

I, too, enjoy going to the zoo and probably take most of my non-Disney photos there. We visit the Bronx Zoo most often, although it is about an hour away. If you're interested, you can browse my zoo photos here http://www.pbase.com/ilene/bronxzoo.

Ilene

 

That is the greatest Lion capture that I've ever seen! LOL! Great job, they're all beautiful.