KC Zoo

OregonAmy

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Kansas City MO
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Went a couple of weekends ago with a KC Meetup Group. Unfortunately, it was a gorgeous sunny day! :sun: But I did manage to get a few OK shots... my first "zoo shoot"...

1. Meerkat
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2. White Handed Gibbon. This one was tough, as they were all behind a thick plate of glass/plexi. I got rid of the haze, but the green hue just won't go away no matter what I try with color balancing. My GIMP/PP skills are pretty basic, though, so any suggestions here are appreciated.
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3. Gorilla - a few of us tried everything we could do to avoid the bright spots on his fur, but it was hopeless. Any fixing I could do in PP only made the shadows black (Definitely open to help here - I have the original pic in RAW). Grr. Nevertheless, he posed for us for about 10 minutes.
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4. Leopard - again, with the shadows. The lighting could have been rather pretty, but the difference between the light & dark spots was just too drastic for me to be able to balance the photo well.
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5. aaaaaand back to the meerkats
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Last edited:
Nice :)

Kansas City has a lovely zoo, I have shot there many times.

The ape in question is a White Handed Gibbon.

Good job on that leopard, that cage is from HELL to shoot through.
 
BTW one thing you could do in PP is to clone nearby fur to cover the hot spots. It's cheating, but it will work.
 
Wonderful! I love meerkats :)
 
Fantastic, I love the facial expressions. My favorite is the second. The third looks "posed" which is kinda funny in itself.
 
BTW one thing you could do in PP is to clone nearby fur to cover the hot spots. It's cheating, but it will work.

Oooh thanks - I think I'll play around with that tonight! And thanks for the ape name - appreciate that.

Fantastic, I love the facial expressions. My favorite is the second. The third looks "posed" which is kinda funny in itself.

Thanks :) That gorilla was hilarious - he posed like that for quite a while, then ran around for a minute, then went off to another area where he posed like that AGAIN. He was staring right at us both pose "sessions" ... I wonder if the zoo staff taught him to do stuff like that...

This is how he was when we first came up to the Gorilla area - didn't take him long to notice we were there, though...
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Nice :)

Kansas City has a lovely zoo, I have shot there many times.

The ape in question is a White Handed Gibbon.

Good job on that leopard, that cage is from HELL to shoot through.

One more thing - while I enjoyed most of the zoo, I saved the "large cats" area for last and it was horribly depressing!! It's clearly the old part of the zoo, and the animals are in these cramped cages that make any photos of them nigh impossible. Examples:

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Tigers & Hornbills are up in my top 5 list of animals to see, and here they are behind bars. I almost didn't bother to take these pictures because of the bars, but the ex-zoo-hater in me compelled me to capture the depressing nature of the animals' captivity. :thumbdown:
 
Nice :)
One more thing - while I enjoyed most of the zoo, I saved the "large cats" area for last and it was horribly depressing!! It's clearly the old part of the zoo, and the animals are in these cramped cages that make any photos of them nigh impossible.

On the bright side, those cages are getting ready to be updated... all the big cats were formerly housed there. You are correct, they are small and inadequate for cats. They would be appropriate for smaller animals, at least in comfort levels.

Kansas City Zoo has been nailed hard by the budget axe, so plans are being delayed, but eventually those cats will be housed elsewhere.

Here was my "Comment Photo" of that area, posted here a couple years ago (it won the monthly Photo Challenge if I recall correctly).

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On another bright-side for would-be zoo-haters ...

Most zoos are actively involved in animal conservation. Many breed and preserve animals that have lost habitat and are no longer able to breed in the wild. The old prison cages are, for the most part, being phased out in favor of the newer and more natural living quarters. They depend on us, the zoo-going public, for financial support to do this. Just imagine how much it costs to feed those critters! Don't feel sorry for those caged animals ... feel sorry for their wild brethren who are dying off. Join your local zoo.

Ian
 

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