This weekend just past Emily and I decided to visit the Perth Zoo for something different to do. The Perth Zoo was somewhere we’d both wanted to visit for some time. It was fairly overcast this weekend, which I thought would be the perfect conditions for photographing animals as the light from the sun would be diffused and I would be able to avoid any harsh shadows and blown highlights in my photos.
We started off wandering around through the Australia Walkabout and then through the Asian, and African sections before leaving. We were both pretty excited when we noticed the little chipmunk running free through the zoo grounds, about halfway into our visit, as we’d both never seen one before – at least not roaming free. The photo of the Cheetah was one of the last photos I took before we decided to call it a day. He was perched atop the tree stump perfectly, almost posing for a photo without any of the fences in the composition.
It had been quite some time since I had taken photographs of wildlife as I haven’t had a zoom lens since I sold my Canon 350D and kit 300mm lens a couple of years back. Now that I’ve got the Canon 70-200mm L series zoom lens, I think I’ll be making “animal portraiture” a more common part of my photographic portfolio as I quite enjoyed myself.
I’ve still got a whole bunch more photos to process yet, but these two photos caught my eye while quickly flicking through all of my photographs from the day so they turned up first on the list of photos to be post-processed.
Every Tuesday for the past few weeks my friend Ryan and I have played a round of golf. Sometimes 9 holes, sometimes 18. This week had us playing a round of 18 holes at Hammersley Golf Course. I had taken my camera along just to have a play around with it and shoot some photographs in between hitting some shots, and i’m glad I did. We finished our 18 holes, and a jug of beer at the 19th, and decided to call it a day. But, because I had brought my camera with me, I decided to make my way down to Trigg Beach to take some photos rather than going home. The clouds over the ocean were looking promising and the sun was beginning to get lower in the sky.
I arrived at Trigg Beach around 3.30pm or so and had a couple of hours to spend looking for some different angles and compositions to shoot. Even that early in the afternoon, the light was so good that I just kept shooting without taking notice of the charge left in the battery getting lower and lower.
30 minutes til the sun hit the horizon and lit up the sky – the battery symbol on the LCD starts flashing! I had to stop, turn the camera off, and wait. That’s not something I usually do while I’m out in the field, and it was a nice change. I walked along the beach watching the light change, watching the clouds move, looking at the different rock shapes, and generally taking in the sounds and movements around me.
The sun hit the horizon, lighting up the clouds with an intense orange glow. I turned the camera back on and used up the last few minutes of battery power. It was one of the better sun sets that I have shot of recent and it was a great feeling being out there and capturing it.
I will definitely be purchasing a spare battery in the near future just in case I’m not so lucky next time.
