This guy still around?

As a matter of fact I am. The weather was perfect this weekend so I celebrated by taking a trip to the Kansas City Zoo. By no means a grand zoo, it has a limited number of exhibits. Several of the cages at the front of the zoo are small in my opinion. Many of the animals pretty much just lounged and/or slept. There were more than a few exhibits still closed for the winter, or under construction. I haven't been to the KC Zoo since I moved to KC some 20 years ago so I wasn't sure what to expect really, but I hated to waste the day. Thankfully later this spring I'll be heading to the St. Louis zoo which should yeild a greater number of photo ops. I did click off over 300 pictures today, but that was due to my attempts at manual focus. Since most animals are being held in enclosures for our protection and theirs, manual focus is almost a requirement. They didn't all turn out, either my left eye doesn't focus well, or I need to adjust the view finder in my camera. I'll have to play with it to find out. Below is a small sampling of what I got. I didn't bother with animal names - I never was very good at zoology. It was pretty overcast, and even with the use of the flash some of the pictures have a dull tint. That was the only complaint I had about the weather frankly, I mean who can complain about 80 in late March in Missouri?

We begin with a few lounging 'roos and one alert 'roo. I guess he was the lookout. There were probably 20-30 of the skippies lounging around. At one point they did all hop up and sprint around as if spooked. These animals are completely uncaged which was kinda nice. No wires to shoot through.



More lounging 'roos.



Geese are pretty common around here, but I just happened to be looking in the right direction to get this nice spread eagle...errr geese shot. I rather liked it.


For some reason, I always forget how large elephants are until I see them at the zoo. Seeing them in the wild, even with someone there to provide scale just doesn't do the behemoth's justice. Since I could find a way to capture a shot of them that displayed that massiveness, I chose to shoot the eyes and provide a window into their spirit.






The meercats (sue me on spelling :P), ever the inquisitive creatures of Africa, kept turning this way and that watching the people watching them. It must be nice for them to have the zoo come to them.



The KC zoo does NOT win points for orignality, meet Simba. Simba does boast a pretty large pride, I counted a good 6-10 females lounging around him. That must be some little black book he has.



There were a couple of bird cages to walk through, and while I did find more interesting birds than this duck, I do like his coloring, and the focus came out :).



Finally we come to something unique, a gorilla performing his daily meditation. This zen master spent a few moment's chanting before finally curling up on his side, using his arm as a pillow and taking a little nap. I'm tellin ya I think it might be time to check these animals' food for some kind of sleeping agent.*




*Any implication that the animals at the KC zoo are drugged is intended for sarcasm only and not intended to be taken as fact or accusation.

Impatience as a virtue

I've always been told patience is a virtue, and I've always responded with, "Not one of mine." So I anxiously wait the greener trees, and grasses, the budding flowers and the wildlife returning to the few places around town I like to go snap shots of. As I wait for better subject matter to photograph I am continuing my slow but steady push towards selling my pictures. I'm really stuck on two questions from my previous post (a couple months ago); pricing and which items to include in the portfolio.

I've shown what I have to a few people, and they seem to like them, but I tend to either have sentimental favorites or am overly critical of my work - I guess I tend to be a perfectionist at times.

In any event, this blog should come back to life in the coming weeks. In addition to shooting in Kansas City, I plan on taking a trip to St. Louis which should include visits to the St. Louis Zoo, Shaw's Gardens, and down town St. Charles.

So please keep checking back. I may not post as often as Cagey , but I haven't forgotten about this little blog either.