Zoo Portraits

Animal portraits can be hard to come by. Wildlife photography is a very specialized and challenging art. Not only do you have to be able to survive “out in the wild” you‘ve got to know your subjects very well and wait for them to appear.

You could easily spend months waiting for a shot to come together and you rarely get a second chance. Hats off to the wildlife photographers who spend their lives getting the shots, they are truly dedicated.

Most of my wildlife photography has been done underwater. Dolphins, Sharks, reef fish etc. I’m pretty happy underwater
and have spent a fair bit of my adulthood either on the ocean or in it. Truth be told, I can swim with sharks all day, but a wild grizzly bear makes me need to change my pants.

So when it comes to shooting land based creatures I usually head to the zoo. Zoos are an easy place to photograph exotic animals without the fear of being disemboweled. The lead shot of the Hamadryas Baboon is actually shot through a glass enclosure.

Generally, I don’t include much of the unnatural surroundings but rather try and get nice “zoo portraits.” Typically, I use an 80-200mm F2.8 lens to get in tight and sometimes a monopod. When I say monopod, I actually mean a tripod with only one leg extended. You don’t necessarily have to own both because a tripod can do double duty. It can be a little dark at times and the 2.8 aperture can come in handy to get your shutter speed up plus the monopod can help keep things sharp.

I approach animal portraits the same way I do people. Cloudy days are nice for the diffused light. That means no hard (ugly) shadows. I look for a simple background if possible, use large aperture (F4 or F5.6) for shallow depth-of-field to blur the background, fill the frame and ALWAYS focus on the eyes. That’s where the soul lives, photographically anyway.

The crocodile was shot through glass also. Interesting refraction effects at the water surface.

I wasn't afraid to tell her she had something on her face. Silverback Gorilla and baby. At the zoo.

Check out my post of the wild osprey chick in Australia. Here

And see the follow up shot of lions in another Zoo Portrait post here.

As always, click any image for the large version. TR