Category: Animals

Goin’ to the zoo – close ups

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This weekend, Cobalt, A and I went to the Denver zoo because Mike’s Camera, the big camera store out here was hosting a zoo day. They were out there renting out cameras, lenses, and tripods to anyone who wanted to play with photography. (In case you were wondering, this is similar to the day I spent with the butterflies at the Butterfly Pavilion). This time was awesome because both Cobalt and A rented fancy DSLR cameras too and then we all got to rent super epic lenses. So the three of us trekked around the zoo with our expensive cameras/lenses capturing the wildlife (funny story: Cobalt and I kept hearing small children being excited to see the squirrels running around the zoo… really children? You see squirrels every day… LOOK AT THAT ELEPHANT! *sigh*). I actually switched expensive fancy lenses halfway through and then ended up taking something ridiculous like 427 pictures (!!!!) between the two of them. Since I took a bunch of keepers, I decided to write two posts on the zoo day, one for the pictures taken with each lens.

So today… we discuss the amazing 18 mm by 300 mm lens I tried out first. For those of you that aren’t keen on photography terms, this lens does EVERYTHING. It can do super close ups like these creatures on today’s post or it can do your typical “wide angle” type expansive mountain shots (not shown today). So that’s pretty amazing. It was also REALLY heavy. My hand was getting tired by the time I got back to switch lenses.

One more thing I want to say about these pictures is that I want to thank Patrick for his amazing zoo pictures and his “how to” zoo picture taking guide on his blog. Really got me thinking about the best way to capture the animals at our zoo with my epic lenses…

And without further ado… more pictures…

I like this tiger pic a lot. He just seems so grand but also kitty-like.

Action shot!

I am not sure what this creature is but I like it… They were hanging out with these neat birds. Maybe I will post a picture of them later…

So, this elephant picture is really special because Mike’s Camera had a bunch of HUGE lenses set up on tripods by the elephants. You basically gave the guy your lens and then hooked your camera up to one of the epic crazy lenses. That’s why I decided to focus on this elephant’s eye. I like it… Boo that I couldn’t get rid of the fence though….

That’s all for today! I had so much fun being an epic photographer with Cobalt and A! It was awesome that all three of us got to play with cameras at the same time. Made for a great time at the zoo. Look forward to seeing more pictures from the other lens later this week!

What is your favorite zoo animal? I might be able to post a cool picture of it… :) What did you do this weekend?

What’s going on over there?

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This weekend, Cobalt and I traveled to NM for an amazing wedding! I took some great pictures of the bride and groom but we got back home so late last night that I didn’t even have time to upload them from my camera. Plus we had a pretty stressful weekend involving getting leaky tire on Cobalt’s car fixed (we got to drive halfway there on a donut tire!). So instead you get a picture Fred, my sister in law’s cat. S and Cobalt were outside pulling Virginia Creeper from the side of the house and Fred was so curious about what was going on…

Question of the day: Cobalt and I drove our friend The Chocolate Pudding down to NM and we got super hyper and crazy on the drive back up. What are your road trips like? Do you have ridiculous conversations or is it quiet and mild?

Sharks N Stuff

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This past weekend, Cobalt and I went to the Denver Aquarium with the Denver regional alumni club for my undergrad university. Knowing, as you do, about my love for sea creatures, you would think that the Denver Aquarium would be a place that I would frequently visit but actually, in my 4 years of living here, I had never once set foot in the building. So when I got the invitation for the regional club event, I pretty much instantly signed Cobalt and me up.

It was kind of a neat event (and three of us from my graduating year turned up!). We got to meet an African porcupine up close and personal (see below for pictures) and we got to go on a behind the scenes tour of the aquarium! On the tour, we met some of the sea turtles who are named after the ninja turtles (even the girls); we learned all about how the animals are trained, how their food is made, how their water is made, etc; and I pretty much decided that it is time for me to get dive certified so that I can volunteer in the shark tank! Anyway, after all of that, we got to go explore all the exhibits (it was really cool to look into the shark tank and be like “wow… we were standing right there!”) which is where I took this super awesome shark picture.

For those of you who are skeptical of aquariums in land locked states like I kind of am (having grown up in CA), I think this little aquarium actually does a pretty good job (and it is bigger than the one in Albuquerque!) though I was sad that they didn’t have an octopus…

Moving on…. porcupine! So this porcupine is like 6 months old and we got to meet her! A couple of pictures for you:

Here she is!!! She got really excited about being in a new room and shuffled off behind one of the tables before the trainer could get her leash on her. It was really neat to see how she is trained to follow a target and gets positively reinforced with food and a clicker when she goes to the target. The people in the room who have never heard of this training method before thought that she was making the clicker noise… Haha… Though she does ruffle her quills together to make this weird swishing sound if she thinks you are trying to eat her (this was her response to being put on a leash too…).


I just wanted to show you what her quills looked like in more detail. Apparently if she really wanted to quill you, she would back into you. Yikes! The trainer said that she is pretty much harmless and that she, the trainer, has only gotten quilled once – when she accidentally dropped the porcupine she was holding and then tried to catch it with her knee (>_<). She said that the only thing you really have to worry about is getting your shoes eaten. Apparently this little porcupine was on the news recently and the news anchor was freaking out because the porcupine was reallllly interested in her leather shoes… Hehe… aww porcupines…

Anyway, that pretty much concludes the aquarium summary. I will leave you with an Instagram of me and a shark at the gift shop…

What did you do this weekend? Cobalt and I also saw two movies, Moonrise Kingdom and Brave. Have you seen either of them? What do you think?

Ribbit?

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This weekend, Cobalt and I went to the Denver Botanic Gardens as part of his birthday adventures and we had a really good time. The gardens are kind of awesome (except the plains one which, in our opinion, seemed a little plain… :-/). It was all overcast and wet outside, which apparently inspired me to be really creative with my photography. I took so many cool pictures with my DSLR… it was awesome. As soon as I can pick out which pictures I like best, maybe I will post some cool flower pictures on here. Today’s pictures come from the rainforest part of the garden (verrrrry humid in there…) where they had some poison dart frogs. The frogs were being a little antisocial and hiding behind the plants in the darker parts of their aquarium so it made taking their pictures kind of challenging (working at really low exposure speeds and f stops…). Which is your favorite?

I like that his little toes are in focus in this one…

One without a flash…

Soaring back to photography

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Last weekend was full of fun and friends! We got to see a bunch of friends we haven't seen in a while and there was much catching up. Speaking of catching up, I also got to the chance to catch up with my DSLR (and my photography friends here in Boulder too). My poor Nikon D80 hasn't been on a shooting adventure in ages so this weekend, we headed up a trail by our houses and took our cameras for a spin.
It was interesting trying to get the creative juices flowing after not doing shooting adventures in a while. I definitely have gotten better at using my camera (I was shooting in manual mode the whole time and was decent at figuring out good settings for the lighting conditions around) but I was thinking waaaaay too much instead of just taking pictures! Part of it is that I really want my pictures to have a signature or a particular style. I feel like right now my pictures are just pictures. I want people to look at my pictures and go "yeah… Potassium took these pictures…" but I don't know how to do that. I guess just keep taking pictures… No more months between photo outings for me!

So yeah… this picture. I was creeping up to these birds in a bush (they were totally aware of me so I wouldn't actually call it "creeping" I guess…) and they kept hopping farther away from me. Eventually, they got tired of my seemingly endless interest in them and this one took off, conveniently flying past my friend G on the way. I like that G is not totally in focus, but enough in focus that you can get his facial expression…

What do you guys think? How do you get a "signature" for your art? How do you keep working at your hobby when you aren't feeling super creative? :)

So warm…

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Apparently we decided to skip a proper fall season this year in Boulder. The trees finally turned yellow and orange and then it promptly snowed. We got another chance at fall weather this weekend but now it looks like we’re going to get more snow tonight and tomorrow. It’s sooooo much colder today than it was yesterday (70 yesterday, 36 today) so I had to get all bundled up to walk to the bus stop. In honor of all the bundling, I am posting a picture of one of the crocheted creatures I’ve recently made. This is my whale amigurumi (Japanese for a knitted or crocheted stuffed animal!) all curled up in the hood of Cobalt’s hoodie from a few weekends ago. Maybe I will post more amigurumi pictures later in the week…

Just a reminder…

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Potassium LOVES sharks… and these sharks are adorable! They look like best friends! :D I love that the one on the right looks like he’s saying “HAI friend!” to his friend. Happy. I could be really obnoxious here and tell you to go say hi to all your friends… and I think I will. So go do it. Friends need appreciating. I’ll start. Thank you friends for being my friends! :)
Anyway, I obviously did not take this picture. My friend Paul sent it to me! Thanks Paul for remembering my shark love! I hope you are all enjoying your Thursdays. :)