The Art of Zoo Photography

This Evening, 15th October, Keyworth C.C. welcomed Tal Chohan to the club to give us his presentation The Art of Zoo Photography. This talk was absolutely superb. Tal’s stunning images showing just what it’s possible to achieve photographing wildlife in zoos and safari parks with a little thought, pre-planning and knowledge of your subjects.

The talk mainly featured big cats, tigers especially but other animals made an appearance too. Tal’s patter was not only filled with technical tips on taking photographs but was also extremely informative about the animals themselves and how zoos work with conservation projects.

Tal talked us through his workflow, explaining about lens choice, shutter-speeds, viewpoints and the time of day/year that would produce the best results. Tips included when shooting through glass make sure the lens is flat against the surface as you’ll get much less distortion to your images. Always set you camera to give the fastest shutter speed you can so you are ready to freeze any action that may happen. Try different lens to give a different perspective to your photographs, even a macro lens can produce great results with large creatures. Think about your composition, study your subject and location, slow down in your picture taking as you will get better photographs than just snapping away at everything you see.

There were so many highlights to this show that it is impossible to list them all. Tal’s passion for his subjects came over strongly, his smooth presentation style was a joy to listen to and his technical considerations were fascinating and something we can all learn from.

Thank-you Tal for giving us an extremely entertaining and education presentation. You certainly opened our eyes as to what is possible with photographing animals in zoos and you have given us all something to think about when we next visit a zoo or wildlife park