It’s been a long long time since I was last at Dublin Zoo, 10 years or more. When I was last there it was in such a poor state of repair with the animals looking miserable I promised I would never return. However I was told it had changed substantially and so with a group from work visited it last Saturday. Wow has it changed. They have done a wonderful job and the animals look so much happier now.
Below are some of the images I captured on the day. I grant you a 100mm Macro would not be the typical setup for a trip to the Zoo but it was fun to limit myself to just a prime. I was left wanting for some additional reach most of the time though so I will definitely not return until I have my 70-200mm and may choose to bring a 1.4x Extender as well, particularly when I have the 5D.
A tryptic image of a mother Orangutan reaches out to comfort her young.
I took a series of images of this young Orangutan stepping into his mothers arms. When I viewed them I simply couldn’t select just one image and decided a triptych would better suit to tell the story of this very human emotion.
A B&W close-up image of a Hippopotamus sunning himself in the mid-day sun.
This guy was certainly not a fast moving object. Given the fairly harsh lighting in this image I felt a B&W conversion would be best and selected a high-contrast approach.
An otter rests in the shade, asking the viewer – what?
On the flip-side this guy and his mate were all over the place and didn’t sit still for a moment. In addition to this was the challenge of shooting through glass. I was happy with this image as I got him looking straight at me with a great ‘what?’ look.
A close up of the buds and flowers from a tree in Dublin Zoo, only a single flower is in focus.
I simply can’t take a trip now without looking out for opportunities to shoot some Macro Floral imagery and this day was no different. I am really happy with this capture, not just because it was captured handheld and managed to get the stamen in perfect focus but because I love the composition and very limited colour palette.
What do you think?
