A day at the San Francisco Zoo
Comments: 6 - Date: July 10th, 2009 - Categories: Personal
It is not often enough that we take the time to create and share personal work, so on a recent trip to the San Francisco Zoo, it was a photographer’s playtime. The gorillas, I must admit, were the highlight of the day for me. I could have watched those fascinating creatures for hours. Here are some of my favorites. I believe the gorilla in this first photo is the mother (Monifa) of the baby gorilla (Hasani) born December 8, 2008 who you will see in a moment. This year marks the 80th anniversary for this zoo!
I think this female gorilla is Bawang who is the surrogate mother to the baby gorilla Hasani. Looks like she has a head ache. : )
Another female gorilla, not sure what her name is but looks like a thinker.
Baby Hasani climbs on the surrogate mother, Bawang.
Oscar Jonesy is the papa of baby Hasani. Here he peeks out of the enclosure and comes out to check on the females.
Oscar Jonesy was very interested in Mark–he couldn’t keep his eyes off of him. These next three photos are all of Oscar Jonesy, a magnificent silver back gorilla.
Very majestic.
His eyes are piercing. Reminds me of King Kong.
The next exhibit we have is the love bird enclosure. : ) Our friends, Ron and Pam, accompanied us for the day. Ron was the head of the photography department at Napa Valley College and my first photography teacher when I began studying photography.
To amuse myself, I photographed similar textures and patterns of animals, plants and objects at the zoo.
A couple of head shots.
This bird’s legs bend backwards but the reason I photographed him is the number band around his leg. Mark and I were married in 1974 and will be celebrating our 35th wedding anniversary next month.
Going to the San Francisco Zoo is among one of my favorite childhood memories and we will have to plan another trip there some day to check on baby Hasani’s progress.
Comment by Linda Hernacki - July 11, 2009 @ 6:29 am
Pat: The photography is excellent! Did you go to school to learn photography or does it just come naturally? I must say your work far exceeds anything I have seen anywhere in photography! Larry likes photography as well and has taken many pictures along his routes to different countries he has traveled to for business including, China, India, France etc. I will forward this email to him to share your photo’s. I am most impressed! Love, Cousin Linda
Comment by Susan Franzke - July 11, 2009 @ 1:55 pm
These photos are gorgeous. Your wedding photographs are always so beautfiul but it’s so nice to have a chance to see different subjects. Love the gorillas, especially Mr. Silverback, Oscar Jonesy. Mark makes friends wherever he goes! Thanks for sending these along.
Comment by Mich elle Bauer - July 11, 2009 @ 8:15 pm
Grrrrrrrrrrreat job Uncle Mark and Auntie Pat!!
Comment by corin gomes - July 11, 2009 @ 8:24 pm
You are a fantastic photographer
Comment by John Griffin - July 13, 2009 @ 6:54 pm
Good job on the processing and post production of all these images! I luv the vertical b+w shot of the gorilla staring at you..
Comment by Patricia Uffelman - July 14, 2009 @ 7:05 am
Thank you all! Our photography journey started about 14 years ago when we brought home our little black lab fluff ball Chloe. Took lots of photos of her; the problem was they were not good photos–they always looked like a black blob with no definition in the shadows.. I decided to go take photography college courses and learned about exposure, lighting, etc., with Mark signing up the next semester for classes. This went on for a few years with photography workshops added to the mix when we decided to do wedding photography. Living in Napa Valley, photography and weddings go hand in hand. It is a nice diversion, however, to photograph other subjects as well.
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