Photography in a zoo on a sunny day in May can be a tough affair. Contrasty light and animals shedding fur, not the easiest of conditions. So imagine my surprise when the frame count kept creeping up, I never thought that was possible. On the other hand, because of the conditions, I kept taking the same pictures with different settings and hoped that I could rescue something out of one of the versions.

Or then it was constant action and I was just trying to keep up. Like this wolf coming ever closer to me, sniffing and digging the ground. Needless to say I was amazed that the only shot that wasn’t instantly trashable had the wolf licking its nose! Mind you, by this time the wolf was so close to me that I was shooting down on it, and with the sun high up in the sky the eye is half shaded. And I’m sure nobody noticed that one ear is missing?

When we got to the muskox enclosure, we found one of the oxen lying down in a shaded corner. Well, partly shaded anyway – cue horrible contrast between the highlights in the horns and the shadows in the dark fur. But I was able to rescue one of the frames in Lightroom, even if I had to convert it to B&W which is more forgiving to all the local exposure adjustments I had to do.

At the bear enclosure, I was really struggling with my fixed 300mm lens. The bear cub was sleeping by the momma bear’s side with the paws turned up so just for once it wasn’t so bad to be shooting straight down. But it was absolutely impossible to get the whole cub in the frame, so I tried stitching. It was a shaded spot so I had to use a long-ish shutter speed and it turned out that it was too long – for every series of pictures I took, at least one of the frames was too shaken for the stitch to work. I only had one series which was borderline ok, but by then the cub had changed position a little bit so the paws were not as nicely positioned as here.

And would you know, at the wolverine enclosure I was shooting down again.  But this is the first time I had a close look at a wolverine eye, and I was surprised to see what shape the pupil is.

I completed my full house of looking-down pictures at the lynx enclosure. The lynx enclosure in Järvzoo is notoriously difficult for any eye-level pictures anyway, but I just love that furry face and those yellow eyes! And I’m sure that nobody missed the missing ear again?

All in all, it was a good visit. Not the ideal conditions and way too much looking down (a big no-no in animal photography), but somehow I’m still happy with the results. Orsa Björnpark next!