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Bad Decision

So I had a flight yesterday to shoot a tree farm in Western Maine. It wasn’t the best of days, but the clouds at the airport were at about 5000′, so I figured I had enough of a ceiling to get the shots the customer wanted. As we were flying out it was fine. As the GPS wound down the distance to our target, the cloud cover started dropping. And when we entered the foothills, it started getting bumpy. And when we got to the target and started shooting… it got worse. I was having a difficult time holding the camera steady. For that matter, I was having a difficult time just holding the camera close enough to my face so that I could see out of the viewfinder. The clouds had thickened up so much that my light had dropped to nothing. And did I mention it was bumpy? I call this “Black eye flying” because the plane bounces so much the camera hits me in the eye while I’m trying to take pictures. And then came the BIG one.

The tree farm backed up to a hill, which got pretty steep towards the top. As the top of the hill was at about our flight level, we had been flying around it to get to the back of the tree farm. This prevented me from getting any shots of the middle of the tree farm. So I asked my pilot, Bruce, to do a tight circle in front of the hill. This would allow for two things. First, he’d be in a tight turn which allows me to shoot straight down out of the window (which was what I needed). And second, it would allow me to get the middle of the tree farm. So we went into a tight turn. I call this “standing the plane on it’s wing”. Everything’s fine. And then the plane stopped flying. Big wind gust or something. The plane was pushed so hard we were past vertical and a little upside down. This only lasted about 2 seconds and then Bruce made a great recovery. But that was it. I’d had enough. Let’s head for the barn…

I should have stopped this before it even started. Right at the airport. I assumed (you know… ass, you, me… that thing) that the weather would be the same 60 miles from where we took off. The weather forecast said it would. But I think the mountains make their own weather sometimes. And since I have a 100% satisfaction guarantee, I’ll go back and shoot it again. But this time, on a nice day.

Let’s go to the zoo…

I like zoo’s.  And let’s face it, some zoos are just better than others.  The best zoos charge an arm and a leg to get in, sometimes $30 a ticket or more.  But what about a zoo that charges $5 for admission?  Can that zoo be any good?  Is it worth the fin?  I guess it depends on what you come away from the experience with.

I had some time to kill while down in Massachusetts this week, visiting family.  In the town next door is a little zoo called Capron Park Zoo, in Attleboro.  Attleboro is about 20 minutes from Providence and 45 from Boston.  So, at ten o’clock this morning, I was in line for my ticket.  Of course, because it was a week day, 25 degrees out, and the wind was blowing, I was the only one in line.  That’s OK, because I don’t like crowds anyway.  The nice kid who took my money was a little perplexed when I asked him where the Elephant pen was.  ”We don’t have any Elephants here.”   And then he told me that the bears, the pigs, the lions, and a few other animals wouldn’t be out because they didn’t like the cold.  Well if they don’t like the cold, why’d they come to Attleboro?  I asked this with a straight face, of course.

Now, at this point, if my wife Colleen were along, she’d be telling the kid to ignore me and my sideways sense of humor.  But she wasn’t there.  So I let the guy stare at me for about an extra half second, and then told him I was kidding.  And that was the first time I got thrown out of a zoo.

Just kidding.  Capron Park Zoo isn’t a big zoo, but they’ve done a great job with it.  From what I’ve heard, the employees and some volunteers are responsible for most of the enclosures.  And I don’t mean “responsible for the enclosures” like they have to clean up after the animals (of course they do!).  I mean responsible like they built them.  The first enclosure was the Lemur building.  Boy can those guys get loud!  I had my Canon 40d with my 70-200 2.8L lens, and I was shooting in raw because I knew I’d never figure out the light in there.  I had my ISO cranked up to the 40D’s max at 3200, lens wide open at 2.8, and I could still only manage 1/20th of a second exposure.  So I grabbed a couple shots of the Lemurs, the Monkeys,  and some other fuzzy little critters who were inside because they don’t like the cold.  All pretty bad.  All fuzzy.  All full of grain.  No, my pictures…  The animals were all fuzzy and probably full of grain, too.  Ha!  Dave make joke!

The next building was the nocturnal building.  I’m sure there were some cool animals in there, but it was too dark to see anything.  Well, almost.  I didn’t even put the camera up to my eye.  Out of the dark and into the light, I started walking around the outside enclosures.  The Sloth Bears were inside.  BEARS?  Too cold for bears?  Must be those caribbean Sloth Bears…  Pigs?  Too cold for the pigs?  It’s because they’re Visayan Warty Pigs.  And everybody knows they’re not cold weather pigs.  OK.  I can understand that.  Ahhh… the red crowned cranes.  Those are some big birds.  A Snow Leopard was out, but the combination of the cage and shooting into the sun nixed any ideas I might have had about shooting him (or her, I didn’t check…).

I was pretty much done, and, as I mentioned earlier, it was 25 and windy, so I was about to leave when a guy yelled at me ( I knew he was yelling at me because I was the only one there) that he was going to let the lions out for a few minutes.  My guess is that he doesn’t clean their cages while they’re in there.  Smart man.  I told him thanks and hung out in front of the lion enclosure.  This time things were setting up well.  I had the sun over my shoulder, I could come out of my “dead of night” ISO and get back down to 100.  Shoot wide open at 2.8 in an attempt to blur the background, and get as close to the cage as possible to blur the wire I was shooting through.  I’m sure there’s a reason, but wouldn’t it make sense to have a 4″x4″ opening in the wire so that we photographers could get some glass on our subjects?

As it turned out, there were 2 spots that you could actually get right up onto the wire.  You still had to shoot through it, but you could plant your lens right on top of it.

Now I knew the lions were only going to be out for a few minutes, long enough “muck out” the cages, so I was ready.  So when the lions came out, two females and a male, I was hoping for some action.  It took all of 30 seconds for each of them to find a spot to sit or lie down.  The male looked old and tired, and kind of like he’d had a hard life.  The two females looked much younger.  Now, right here, I should be adding some joke about the old lion and his two lionesses, but that’s too easy, so I’ll just continue.  I got right on the fence and started shooting.  It was apparent right away that I could get all of the static shots I wanted, so I got a couple and waited.  I was waiting for the inevitable.  I was waiting for the yawn.  And of course, because the lionesses looked bored, I didn’t have to wait long.

I had to shoot through a fence.  And the background, even blurred as much as possible, screams “ZOO”!  But I got a couple of good shots.  And, once I get a little better at photoshop, I can use the images of the lionesses, while adding a better backdrop.  But, for now, I’m happy with my trip to the $5 zoo.  Who says you can’t get good shots at the zoo?  Thanks, Capron Park!  More later.