Sorry, I didn’t have a very verbal post yesterday.  I was tired after editing my photos and just wanted to get them online.  Thomas, however, posted a good description of our class on his blog.

Western Lowland Gorilla

Gorilla

First of all, the class was wonderful and I highly recommend it. Ron Mayhew taught it through Emory Continuing Education.   The class was geared more toward photographers with digital SLRs, and I mostly used a Sigma 50-500mm on my Nikon D50.

Ostrich (Struthio camelus)

Ostrich

There was a little bit of instruction, but most of the time was spent photographing the animals. What made it different from a regular trip to the zoo is that we got to go behind the scenes to get photos up close.

Orangutan

Orangutan

The day started out with a talk about minimizing the zoo-y (fences, unnatural lines, glass reflection) look in your photos. Next, we had a group tour of the overall zoo. After lunch and some more instruction, we had our close up sessions with the gorillas, orangutans, giraffes, ostriches, and birds.

Adolescent Verreaux's Eagle-owl (Bubo lacteus

Eagle Owl

At the beginning, the instructor asked us what single thing we wanted to focus on for the class. I said that I wanted to get a nice portrait of an animal, and I’m happy with a few shots that I captured.  I think the big keys are patience and a telephoto lens.

Western Lowland Gorilla

Gorilla

If you want to see more, I’ve posted the whole set on Flickr:

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