The National Zoo Continued

The animals at the zoo with the most freedom and largest cages were the big cats.  There were lion cubs and tiger cubs and they were awesome to watch.  They were full of energy and played a lot, chewing on sticks, playing in the water and on the stairs.

 The male lion was in its own large pen and he paced back and forth every once in a while.  I was lucky enough to photograph him with with backlit bushes behind him.  He showed his teeth with a big yawn (below) and I heard him roar from a nearby location, but missed seeing it.

A visit to the National Zoo

On Saturday, we visited the Smithsonian National Zoo.  We haven't been there in years.  I haven't looked at all of the photos yet, but here are a few I liked so far.  It is challenging to get good photos, since most of the animals were indoors with cages and manmade walls.  Some of the exhibits even included trash, like tissue boxes and tooth paste boxes for the animals to use for play. (Small mammals)

                   Andean bear

               Reflected discus fish

           Roseate spoonbill

                       Seal

                Baby gorilla

 

Jousting at the 2014 St. Mary's County Fair

While enjoying the St.Mary's County Fair, we watched part of the jousting competition and chatted with Mikayla and her horse Tyke.  Jousting is the official state sport in Maryland.  During a competition, the jouster aims a long lance at 3 separate tiny rings spaced along a straight line, while riding a horse at a fairly rapid pace.  The rings have a little powder on them so they don't stick.  The powder makes a visible puff when the jouster is successful in spearing the ring.

The only thing missing were the medieval costumes.

To learn more about our unusual state sport, visit

http://marylandjousting.com

Here are a few photos of Mikayla and her horse Tyke.  I enlarged one of the photos so you could see Mikayla's expertise.

A competitor owned a blue eyed mare, that I couldn't resist photographing, even though the fence was in the way.

And by the way, Mikayla did very well.  Congratulations Mikayla!

Ridge Carnival

We visited the Ridge Carnival a few times.  I picked out some of my favorite shots, showing a variety of things you would see at a Fair.  I will share why I liked a particular photo beneath it.  Which ones do you like?

I liked the repeating patterns in this one.

A romantic moment while watching the kids on the teacup ride.

Good things come in threes.  The pink monkey breaks the pattern.

A child brings a smile to a game worker.

Interesting textures with the fence.

Lots of emotion here!

I liked the frame in a frame and big smiles.

Her hair shows the movement, even though this is a still image.  Lots of emotion!

Fun colors.  Since the smurf is bigger, it became the subject in an otherwise busy shot.

The St. Mary's County Fair is this week, September 18-21.  Maybe these photos will give you some ideas for photographing it or interest you enough to attend or enter a contest.  One of the photography categories in the photo contest run by the St. Mary's County Camera Club is last years County Fair.

Night blooming water lilies

Here are some more lovely tropical water lilies.  We waited till dusk to see these night blooming lilies.  Just beautiful!

           Tropical Nymphaea Antares

             Tropical Nymphaea Antares

Victoria or Queen victoria lily from the Amazon?

Water Lilies

Here's a few of the photos I took of a water lily display over the weekend.  The weather on Saturday was lovely and there was an overcast sky, perfect for flower photos.  

On sunny days, the shadows can be much more harsh, although I still like the photos because of the colors.

If you want to compare, you can look at some of my water lily photos on Flickr at 

www.flickr.com/photos/75311362@N08 in the flower album.  Here's an example.

The Sequence Photo Challenge

We had an interesting theme for the St. Mary's County Camera Club August Competition-make a sequence of photos all included in one picture.  The basic idea was to show a moving subject multiple times, while the background remained the same.  This only works with multiple exposures or several layers in a photo creating a composite of pictures.

I chose a photo that was meaningful to me.  Every year, I wait with baited breath to photograph the osprey juveniles as they learn how to fly.  I never know how lucky I will be.  Will they learn to fly at noon, when the light is poor?  Will the juveniles learn to fly on a rainy or foggy day?  Will they learn to fly while I am away from the nest?

This year there was one juvenile.  She learned to fly on a Saturday around 9:30 am.  Lucky me.  They usually flap their wings vigorously and hop up and down a lot!!!  I had watched her practice for a few days.  Finally she took off at a shallower angle than usual toward the south.  (Generally, the experienced birds fly more west and at a steeper angle.)  I managed to get the flight on film with four still shots.

I spent quite a lot of time trying to come up with another sequence photo to add to the competition, but I didn't succeed.  I tried using amusement park photos, but there was lots of equipment that seemed like it would ruin the photo, since the rides were always attached and couldn't be separated to create individual images instead of blurs.  In the end, a blurred looking train photo was the winner.  I took second place with "First Flight".  I think if I did the photo again, I would only show 3 images of the osprey, so she wasn't flying out of the photo so much.  Which photo do you prefer?  The face is fairly hidden in the highest image.  Altogether, it was an interesting challenge.

Second Place photo- 4 images layered

Photo of 3 composite images