The ZOOm chronicles… part 8…

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Everybody loves polar bears… even bipolar bears… and look, this one is reenacting the movie poster for The Lion King, on her own Pride Rock!

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The thing is… (hello, thing, long time no see)… that I didn’t even have to get rid of any of the bear pictures I took due to technical reasons.

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All the photos came out looking pretty good. I barely even did any cropping.

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And I ended up with enough pictures to do two polar bear posts.

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Yay, zoom lens!

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And yay, polar bears!

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Unless you don’t like polar bears…

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In that case…

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I guess you are just out of luck.

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The ZOOm chronicles… part 7…

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The maned wolf… and not a bad picture, considering it was taken through a chain link fence.

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Chain link fences seem to confuse my camera now and then, especially with the zoom lens on. Sometimes it wants to focus only on the closer fence. Other times, like that up there, you can still see the fence, out of focus, in the foreground.

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That is still a nice picture, but not as nice as the first one, which seems to ignore the fence entirely.

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But who know what a camera is thinking?

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Taking photos through glass is a whole other set of problems…

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But we will get to that later… when we are looking at pictures of baby orangutans and gorillas and big cats!!!

 

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The ZOOm chronicles… part 6…

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What is the correct angle from which to photograph two camels facing in two directions?

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I mean, a few steps one way or the other totally changes the picture.

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And getting both heads in focus is hard.

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Let’s look at a random picture of Olivia looking at hippos while we ponder this dilemma.

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Or am I overthinking this?

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Upon reflection… (because ‘wet dreams’ would just be tacky) part 16 …

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Okay… I swear… this is the last snake one… because that would be a reptile dysfunction…

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The ZOOm chronicles… part 5…

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Because everybody loves elephants… or edaphants, as little Olivia calls them… because she’s 2.

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On our most recent adventure to the San Diego zoo… sorry… the ‘world famous’ San Diego zoo… (the locals get mad if you leave off the ‘world famous’ part)… we saw an elephant playing with a box.

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She was having a lot of fun with that box. I think there might have been treats… like apples… inside.

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She was throwing it around…

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And sticking her trunk in the little holes…

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And picking it up between her trunk and her feet…

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And then there was this lovely girl.

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She was grabbing hay from a hanging barrel that swung around and moved up and down. And maybe that is why I only laugh a little at the ‘world famous’ part of the zoo name. Because they really did start the movement to get animals out of little cages and into larger, more natural enclosures, with more things to do. That and the breeding programs for endangered species.

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And don’t all the animals in all the photos from this series look happy?

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The ZOOm chronicles… part 4…

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Birds…

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The San Diego zoo has quite a lot of them. There are two huge walk-through aviaries, and numerous ponds and enclosures.

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And birds are pretty awesome… descendants of ancient reptiles that traded in their scales for feathers.

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And those feathers come in an astonishing range of colors and shapes… like that guy… who looks like he got snowed on.

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That guy was all like, hey, don’t pay any attention to that stupid duck… use your fancy zoom lens on me!

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I could relate to that.

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And the zoom lens is fun to use on birds.

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I am always trying to frame that perfect shot… no… don’t worry about how much I cropped from each image, or how many digital images I discarded…

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Just enjoy the pretty pictures.

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I think I get a photo of that guy every time I go to the zoo.

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Yes, the flowers do make you look more fancy.

 

 

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Upon reflection… (because ‘wet dreams’ would just be tacky) part 15 …

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I know… I already did a few snakes… but they just look so cool wiggling in the water!

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The ZOOm chronicles… part 3…

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What the heck is that, I can hear you asking, a coconut with duck feet??? No, that is a duck with duck feet. It even has two of them, even though you are only seeing one of them, and the other is folded up into the feathers.

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That first photo is an optical illusion created by taking pictures through thick, curved glass and from below the waterline.

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It turns out that you can get some really weird effects by changing the angles of your shots.

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And where, you might be wondering, can one find a duck floating in water, conveniently located behind thick, curved glass?

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Why, at the hippo pool at the San Diego zoo, of course!

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Because that is where I went yesterday with my little buddy, Olivia.

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But finding a duck hiding one of its legs is the tricky part.

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The ZOOm chronicles… part 2…

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Whenever I go to the zoo, I take a bunch of pictures, and then have to figure out what order to post them in. I try to save the most exciting animals for last… which, I guess, means that I don’t find ducks that exciting… but I still try to get good pictures of them…

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And little Olivia loves ducks… which is why we saw so many of them…

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Look at the rainbow colors in the water.

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That is a beautiful duck… that looks a little like a life preserver when asleep.

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I don’t mean that I don’t like ducks, they just aren’t quite as interesting as big cats and baby gorillas…

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A lot of the ducks were sleeping. These ducks with the rust-colored heads seem to like to sleep in pairs…

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And sometimes, standing up…

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Look… it’s a water bed…

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That one was sleeping in the tall grass… after removing its own head, presumably.

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And that one was pretending it was a tree.

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The ZOOm chronicles… part 1…

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Guess where I took Olivia today? What? No… I didn’t feed her to a freekin’ snow leopard… what is wrong with you? Would I do that to this kid?

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No, I would not. I did, however, take her to the world famous San Diego zoo again. And I did bring the zoom lens for the camera… (hence the clever name of this new series, and no, I am still doing the reflecting water series too, that is just fun… I might even put some pictures from the zoo trip in that other series)…

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Look, don’t let it get you all confused. All you need to do is keep coming back and looking at the pretty pictures… whether there is water moving under them or not… and maybe comment now and then, would that kill you?

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But we did see lots of cool animals… Ha… see what I did there… because polar bears are cool… unless they are bipolar bears… HA!

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And because I brought the zoom lens, you can get up close and personal with the animals… so to speak…

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Don’t fall asleep… you might miss something good…

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That isn’t even a real seal… it is plastic… it is in the kid’s playground near the polar bears… just seeing if you are paying attention.

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Anyway, I hope you come back to share our latest adventure.

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Because who knows what you will see…

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See what I mean?

 

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