Creature features: Lauren Bowers, 12, from Liverpool, stalks the elephants during a recent outing to the zoo.
During our hometown’s lengthy winter season, everyone who
lives here has to adapt to conditions, even the celebrities who star at
the Rosamond Gifford Zoo. As the animals take the cold months in
stride, the zoo invites photography buffs to join them by getting out
to snap some shots in their unique winterscape to enter the “Winter at
The Zoo Photo” contest. This is the fifth year of the competition.
First-place and runner-up prizes are
awarded in each of three age groups—5 to 12, 13 to 18 and 19 and
older—as well as in three specific categories of photo. Entries from
all ages are considered in those categories, which include Best Winter
Photo, Best Digitally Enhanced Photo and Best Action Shot.
“Best Winter at the Zoo is really
capturing an animal enjoying the winter, our outdoor animals,” explains
zoo director of public relations Lorrell Walter. “We allow digitally
enhanced photos, but only in that category. We don’t think it’s fair to
let somebody significantly alter a photo and submit it against
something that’s a raw image. Best Action Shot is animals playing or
doing something really extraordinary.”
All photos submitted must have been shot
during the month of January with winners selected by a team of three
judges. Deadline for entries is Feb. 1 and the winners will be
announced Feb. 19. The grand-prize winner, chosen from among the top
finishers in the various categories, will receive a package including
Syracuse University basketball tickets, a restaurant gift certificate
and a zoo VIP tour. Details, rules and all prizes are available on the
zoo’s Web site, www.rosamondgiffordzoo.org/photo-contest.
While cold, possibly snowy conditions
may be an uncomfortable environment for shutterbugs, it often creates
opportunities for better results when focusing on the zoo’s residents.
“When I have gone to the zoo {during winter}, even when it was snowing,
the animals seemed more frisky,” recalls Nick LoPresti of Syracuse, a
self-described lifelong photo hobbyist. “Where they may be lounging in
the sun in so-called good weather, in the winter they’re more moving
about. So it can be a fun time to go see them.”
Some animals, like the white-lipped
deer, native to Tibet, look very much at home in extreme conditions.
The bighorn sheep seem totally comfy grazing below their rocky perch
while Siberian tigers prowl a wooded hillside where fringed-topped
grasses provide perfect camouflage for the massive cats. With or
without snow, leafless trees, bare branches and frozen bushes add drama
to the winter scenery.
The animals themselves may add to the
chill of the shot if they present a frosty back, an icy face or exhaled
puffs of vapor. “If the animal has interesting colors, snow gives a
nice, neutral background that can draw your eyes to the colors of the
animal,” says LoPresti, who has taken numerous prize-winning photos,
including a 2008 best in show at his employer’s “On My Own Time”
competition but hasn’t entered the zoo’s contest. “For any winter
picture, it always helps to have snow or ice on trees or even on the
animal. It’s just a prettier looking shot if you’ve got snow outlining
the trees.”
Like the animals, photographers will have to adapt to the
confines of the zoo, where they will have to work around such
obstructions as fencing, glass walls, cages and varied landscapes. “The
shot you’re trying to get is one where you can’t even tell the animal
is in a zoo,” LoPresti emphasizes. “It just looks like a wildlife shot.
If your photo has bars or a fence in front of the animal, it doesn’t
have the same impact of capturing the nature of the animal.”
There are a few tricks to framing the
animals without barriers. “In the case of fencing, if at all possible,
you want to get close enough to shoot between any grids in the fence,”
LoPresti advises. “But if you can’t get right up to it, if you focus on
something in the distance, even if there is some mesh in front of your
lens, it will usually blur away to invisibility. When shooting through
glass, the technique is pretty similar. You have to get right up on the
glass so there’s no reflection of the lens in the glass. You basically
shadow that section of glass with your camera so you’re not getting any
reflection.”
Zoo residents may not cooperate by facing the camera or
even presenting themselves within range, so in order to get a good
photo, photographers will have to spend some time, scout around and
wait for the animals to cooperate. “You can’t call the animals over so
you can get a good shot of them,” LoPresti says. “You’re at the mercy
of what the animals are going to be doing at the time you’re there. It
takes a lot of patience and it takes a lot of time.”
Winter visitors this year will have to
overlook a couple of areas under construction, one for the pachyderm
pavilion and another developing the primate park, both due to open this
year. Shutterbugs can take advantage of the availability of indoor
areas to take a break and warm up or have a snack, allowing the
situation to dictate when the time is right.
Indoor exhibits are fair game for the
contest, too. In fact, Janette Liddle of Poland, northeast of Utica,
was last year’s adult category winner with a photo of a trio of shiny
lookdown fish taken indoors as they were swimming in their tank. “That
day I wasn’t having any luck outside,” Liddle recalls, “so I positioned
myself to make sure I was standing where I wasn’t getting a reflection.
Then I watched their swimming pattern to get the shot I wanted with
bubbles in the photo. I must have taken 50 shots of those fish from
different positions.” Liddle made the 60-mile trip with her husband,
Craig, so both could get some shots to enter in the contest.
Liddle’s winning entry is on display in
the lobby of the zoo building alongside other recent competition
winners. Eleven-year-old Courtney Moore’s Youth Division winner depicts
a red panda, long, curved claws braced against a grainy log. While
Erika Pisik’s grand-prize shot of a pair of canoodling lions is in
black and white, most entries are in color.
Artists hoping to compete for prizes have to be prepared
with the proper equipment to avoid the frustration LoPresti encountered
on one zoo visit, which happened before the photo contest was
inaugurated. “It was when they had tiger cubs that were rolling around
and riding on the mother’s back. Those were great moments and I took
the pictures and made them the best I could, but they weren’t good
quality because they were quite far away and I didn’t have the right
camera with the capability of getting close enough. For almost all of
the outdoor animals, you’re going to need something that is fairly
considerable telephoto or it will appear too small in the frame.”
The winning photos on exhibit all
picture the personality of the various species at the zoo. “For an
image that’s going to have some impact and capture the nature and the
spirit of the animal, you’ve got to get a good look at them,” LoPresti
insists. “Look in their eyes, look in their expression, look in their
face. You need to pretty much fill the frame with that animal.”
For the month of January, admission
to the Rosamond Gifford Zoo is free to participants who show a camera
and present a coupon available at www.rosamondgiffordzoo.org. The zoo
is open daily from 10 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. For more information, call
435-8511.
Janette Liddle’s first place adult photo of lookdown fish...
First place youth photo by
Courtney Moore of the red panda...
...and the grand prize winner of
the lions, by Erika Pisik.
