Animals of Prague IV.
The last post of this little series is a bit different, since it doesn’t feature real wildlife. But when it comes to animals in Prague one can hardly ignore this place - the Prague zoo. I used to have a bit mixed feelings about zoos in general. After all, animals are meant to live freely in the wild. However, pros of zoos certainly out-weight their downsides. Modern zoos provide high quality care for animals and their enclosures usually nicely imitate their natural environment. Luckily, the times of ugly metal cages are long gone. And where else one can see animals from all around the globe? This alone contributes to public education about live in nature. But even more important are their conservation and breeding programs. The Prague zoo certainly belongs among those modern zoos and I can surely recommend visiting it, when the circumstances allow it again.
From photographic standpoint, the zoos provide almost perfect conditions to photograph animals, although it is still not entirely without obstacles. On one hand, a photographer has plenty of time to think through the shots, since the animals are obviously not going anywhere. On the other hand, animals are usually not very interested in cooperation and the enclosures sometimes provide photographic “traps”, which tend to ruin the picture. The potentially distracting background is one of the most “dangerous” part of zoo photography. Unless you are going for documentary pictures, the goal is to make the picture look natural and to capture the essence of each animal. Therefore all distracting elements (such as metal parts of enclosures, fences, posts, ropes or even people…) should be eliminated from the composition if possible. Just take your time, find the best angle and wait for the decisive moment (nice pose, piece of action, funny moment…). It might not be the most adventurous photography, but it can be rewarding anyway.
The first three pictures were taken just on my smartphone, but since they came out quite nicely, so I don’t mind sharing them. These are some of the animals I was able to capture during my one day (not enough at all) visit: brown fur seal, Humboldt penguin, Gharial, palm cockatoo, western crowned pigeon, scarlet-headed blackbird, little pied cormorant, flamingo, European pond turtle, Great white pelican, western gorilla, Indian elephant and North American river otter.
And since this is the very last post of 2020, I hope your 2021 will be better and happier, even though the bar is not set too high this time…
