Photography Blues

This month I made my last trip to Exotic Animal Paradise, just North of Springfield Missouri. Paradise is closing October 1, 2006. I have taken my kids to this drive through animal park almost every year since I moved to Missouri in the early 80s. The visit was bitter sweet.

Similar to visits of years past, I drove through miles of hilly landscape inhabbitted with herds of herbivores. We bought the animal chow sticks to feed them only to find the reduced herd was full and most were not interested in eating. But we had a great time taking pictures of these beautiful animals at close range.

My most memorable moment at EAP was when my daughter was about 6 years old and she was riding a young camel. The camel unexplicably reared, flailing it's forelegs at it's trainer. The trainer ran in fear as my daughter dangled by one arm from the camel's saddle rack. I ran from the boarding platform as my daughter fell to the ground. From my perspective it looked like the camel was trampling my daughter. She lay on the ground, the camel over her, legs going up and down like pistons.

My motherly instincts kicked in and I charged the animal. The only thought in my mind was to get that camel off my daughter and I planned to do it with a football shoulder block. Luckily that didn't have to happen, because as most animals know, there is no fury like a mother protecting her infant. The camel saw me charging and took off running to the far side of the area. Once the camel was away from Brenda, she popped up like a jack in the box. She was a little shook up but was otherwise fine. To this day she hates camels.

At least we can still enjoy them with a camera, from a safe distance. :)

Oh, another thing that made this a blue day was that I made a mistake I previously warned my readers not to make. When we were indoors taking pictures of the baboon baby, I set my white balance to tungsten light. That wasn't the mistake. The mistake was that I neglected to turn it back when we went outdoors. So my pictures all had a blue cast to them. Photoshop helped some, picasa warming filter helped some to. But some still look blue. sigh, but appropriate for the day anyway.

geopic

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