Monkey see, monkey do

Since deciding to dedicate more time to my photography and to push myself to photograph new subject matters I’ve endeavoured to get feedback from fellow photographers as much as possible, in particular through participation in club and national competitions.  As the IPF Nature Competition deadline approached last month, I therefore took the opportunity of a visit to Dublin Zoo to capture some wildlife shots specifically for that competition.

Sadly, on the last day for entries, while reading the rules, it became apparent that strictly speaking, photographs taken in a zoo did not qualify under the definition of Nature Photography, and so I opted not to enter.

I have no doubt that some people did indeed enter the regional rounds with photographs captured in Dublin zoo  or other zoos, unaware (or maybe even aware) of the rule in force, and I’m sure it’s possible some of those images qualified for the finals.  But having discovered the rule, I would have only been fooling myself.

I can see why they have that rule – capturing wildlife in its natural environment is a very different scenario to capturing it (photographically that is) in captivity.  This monkey is a good example.  I could probably go back to Dublin Zoo every day for the next year and find him or one of his kind sitting on a log like this eating food that the zoo keepers hide to keep them actively foraging for food.  In the wild, the first challenge would be to find the monkey, the second would be to catch him as he ate some recently found food, and the third would be to get him to look at the camera for the shot.  In Dublin Zoo I only had to worry about that last bit.  And even that didn’t take long.  I guess he’s used to people looking at him, and he looks back cooperatively.

I like the pose (if that is the right term for animals) and the tones in this image, and I suppose I like the fact that you don’t really know that the subject was in captivity.   Maybe I should have just convinced you that I lay on a forest floor for 3 days with hardly any sleep, eyes glued to my camera, lens ready to focus, shutter ready to fire.  I need not have told you that I was actually passing by having seen some hippos, about to visit the elephants and looking forward to a hot chocolate at the cafe.