Gorilla 3

I've been calling the primates shown over the past couple of days, "apes", but they are Western Lowland Gorillas from the rainforests of Western Africa.

Today's photos show three individuals that were photographed through the glass enclosure at the Calgary Zoo. It is amazing how close I was to these animals - close enough to capture an image of one of their eyes.

For those of you who photograph animals through glass enclosures at zoos, you have to remember to shoot without a flash and place the camera as close to the glass as possible. You may have noticed the hand prints on the glass in the photos of the little girl watching the gorillas in yesterday's post. I tried to make a few photos through the glass while sitting, but there was so many handprints that I had to stand, otherwise it was too smeary. As well, a flash would cause too many reflections unless the lens was actually touching the glass.

Because the photographs were shot inside, I had to set the ISO at 1600, but many cameras these days have auto-ISO, which means that the camera will set it automatically when you move from bright to dark situations. That function avoids the possibility of shooting outside at 1600 without noticing - that happened to me a few times. :)

If I lived near the zoo, I would spend a much longer time photographing the gorillas in order to catch more facial expressions and more of their actions which make them so human-like.