A day at the zoo

A week ago today I took the last opportunity for a day out with the family in school summer holidays. Deciding to travel with a light set of camera kit I opted for an EOS 450D and 70-200mm f/4L IS lens. It was quite refreshing not to have a camera bag to carry; SD cards easily fit in my pockets. It was a great day out the weather was a bit overcast, but warm enough to be t-shirt and shorts. I've been to this zoo many times, and have seen most of the exhibits but the kids were keen as ever.

One thing about Whipsnade is they exercise their elephants by taking them for a daily walk around the park, it's quite a surprise to be walking or driving round and find a line of five or six elephants walking along the roadside towards you. On this trip we had gone towards the penguins when we saw that the elephants were out for their walk just nearby, so penguins forgotten we went to check on the elephants. There were five elephants the littlest an eight month old baby and the biggest being it's mother pictured above. It's quite amazing the size range the little 8 month old one just about waist height on the keepers, the big ones had to be dissuaded from taking the bigger branches out of the trees. However this is a special thing since it's my childrens first time to be so close to an elephant, barely 3 metres in front of them and nothing but air between them. They were enthralled and we simply watched and took some pictures for over 20 minutes while the elephants did some pruning of the trees and pushed some fallen logs around. There's something special about these gentle giants, and being close to them is something I always enjoy in a zoo or in the wilds of Kenya.

Sometimes the little monkeys need their picture taken too... this little statue is outside the monkey house and I know from past visits it's a good spot for some pictures with the kids. Three wise monkeys style has been done in a previous trip, here I went for monkey attitude and added a bit of post processing in photoshop. It's using a tip I picked up from Matt Haines who added it in the comments on this basketball players shoot that was on the strobist blog.

I'm a bit backlogged with photos right now, still working on the ones from my summer holiday, some wedding shots, the rest of the zoo trip and a night out shooting in a shopping center with the local camera club. Photoshop and DPP are going to be busy.


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