Tag: Auckland Zoo

Giraffe Shot

SONY DSCWhen I think about the dinosaurs (not that I do that very often) and our current day animals, the giraffe is like the modern day brontosaurus to me. Long necked greens eater, evolved to reach the high trees. Funny looking, but gorgeous creatures that for some reason always look well presented.

Today’s shot is my last for now from the Sydney Zoo series I have dropped in this last week. On a related note, one of our local giraffe from Auckland Zoo, Nakuru, has just completed her journey across the ditch to Melbourne Zoo to find a new mate…proving that even giraffes get seasick along the way!

One or two interesting facts – they can close their nostrils, useful to block out ants or in sandstorms.A giraffe only walks or galops and can sustain about 50kph (30mph) for several km. Lifespan is up to around 25 years. Greeks and Romans theorised the giraffe was a hybrid of a camel and leopard – called a camelopardalis! 

That will do for giraffe facts for today…

 

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Burma the Elephant

ZooLooking back to my first post on MikeHawkey.com, I thought I would post up one of the images used in the post, and my cover art for the site. Hunting through my folders of images, I found it, Burma the Elephant.

Burma is Auckland Zoo’s only current elephant, sadly after its other, Kashin, died at a youthful 40 years old in 2009. An ‘Asian elephant’, Burma was born in 1982, and thanks to a dedicated team of helpers, although currently alone, Burma is in good health and doing well. Described as being much like a cheeky teen, she is energetic and mischievous. Sweet fruits, painting (which can be brought) and visiting other animals on daily walks around the zoo are amongst Burma’s fun-to-do things. I have read the Zoo is working hard to try and get some more elephant friends for Burma. No doubt its a slow process, but fingers crossed it comes together!

Image wise, this was shot last year on my Sony Nex 5N. I dont have any lens data, so I suspect it was on my Jupiter-11 lens. Editing wise, I cropped the foot of the rider off and lifted the saturation a little.

 

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Monkey Business

I read with interest this morning that Leica has just announced its new camera, the Leica M-Monochrom. Well beyond my camera spending budget, it comes with a B&W sensor – something people in the photography world online have been calling out for, regardless of their brand of choice. I am a bit nostalgic at times, and do love my 35mm film cameras & shooting 35mm B&W film (something I will need to post up some time), but I’m not convinced I would like to be locked into B&W digital. Much like my film cameras, I like to have the choice!

After the color of yesterday, todays image switches to monochrome. Taken at the Auckland Zoo with my Sony Nex 5N and an old Russian Jupiter-11 lens. I shot the image in color, but converted to B&W as for me it feels like it invokes more emotion to me. In color the monkey was not as bright as its surroundings & the image just didn’t seem to work as well.

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