Portraits of the Planet: North Carolina: The North Carolina Zoo

The North Carolina Zoo boasts an impressive five miles of trails and hundreds of species of animals. I could've spent all day in their aviary alone, and that is honestly where I spent most of my time (when I was oogling the polar bear). I also spent time watching four lion cubs terrorize their parents. The zoo is seriously impressive, and the habitats are HUGE which made me feel better.

I've really gotten into photographing birds, but I'm not really very good at it yet. What better place to photograph birds than a zoo where they can't get too far away from me? In theory, it's a good idea. In practice, it's a bit more difficult than I had thought. These birds might be a bit more acclimatized to humans than those in the wild, but they are still skittish enough to move away from you when you think you have a great image. Also, the light in the glass building wasn't the best mostly due to a very overcast day, so my shutter speed couldn't be as fast as I wanted it to be.

A couple of these pictures are going into a newer, larger project of birds that I'm going to be printing out using an early photographic process. This project won't be ready for awhile; it is time consuming and right now I don't have the full time to dedicate to the whole process. I am slowly working on getting together my favorite images and creating digital negatives. I'll post more about my progress as it continues.