Please note that any wildlife image I put on this blog has been created in the wild of wild animals unless I state otherwise.   I have spent too much of my life in pursuit of pictures of wildlife to do otherwise.

Up until around the year 2000, once a year I would make pictures in a zoo in order to obtain some stock images of animals from other continents.  These are animals that I was not likely to ever be able to photograph.  They were of course marked as “zoo shots”  In the mid 2000s I taught some wildlife workshops at zoos and made some images in the process.  One thing that I taught during those Workshops was that public zoos are great places to practice wildlife photography.  They are especially good locations to become good at portraiture and other intimate views of wild animals.   Many of the techniques used in zoos can be applied in the wild.

You can often get close enough to animals at zoos, that you can even make partial body shots of small animals.  I used a zoom set at 170mm for both of these images of Meercats.

You will rarely get as close to wild animals as you do zoo creatures but shooting up close in zoos will certainly help you to learn the art of capturing the moods and personalities of wildlife.  It is also a great way to do a study of fur and feather detail on specific animals.

Lioness

The King

Bengal Tiger

Exploring Texture…Rhinoceros

Cinereous Vulture

If you were photographing these animals in the wild, you would certainly (if you could) want to move into position to get the best and most tried and true light falling on your subject.  When you are practicing in a zoo, you can take some chances with things like shadowy light.  You can experiment and learn techniques that can then be used in the wild.

Seal

The beautiful Andean Bear