A Day at the Wildlife World Zoo

Last week my parents came to Phoenix to visit, and we went to the Wildlife World Zoo in Litchfield Park, Arizona. I have been wanting to take zoo pictures forever, so it seemed like the perfect time to take my camera along and capture some shots.

There were so many birds at the zoo!  A lot of them had such gorgeous, bright colored feathers..

I loved this one!...

Check out those amazing eyes!...

I love seeing the monkeys at the zoo! They are usually some of the most active animals there, except for this little guy who was crashed out for a nap...

I couldn't resist taking a picture of these cute little guys...

Loved the frogs!...

This guy looks like a fat little Budda frog :) ...

Tigers are are my all time favorite animals! It's not often that you actually see the tigers active in the zoo, and we were lucky enough to see both of these tigers up and walking around! We think that the animals knew it was almost dinner time, so that is why so many of them were active near the end of our visit...

I couldn't resist posting this one!...

The kangaroos were mostly laying around napping, but this one was willing to pose for a photo...

How would you like to carry around those horns all day?...

This is probably my favorite picture of the day! I just love his expression!...

I hope you enjoyed seeing the photos of the animals!

Michele Whitacre is a portrait photographer serving Phoenix, Arizona and the surrounding area. Visit Michele's website at michelewhitacrephotography.com. Become a fan of Michele's work on Facebook. Follow Michele's updates on Twitter.

Happy 4th Birthday, Sweet Baby Lexi Lou!

My little fur baby, Lexi, turned 4 years old, so of course we had to celebrate with new toys and treats for her and Zoe.

They got a kick out of destroying the bag that her gift was in!...

My parents were visiting on her birthday, and even brought her a gift all the way from Michigan.  Lexi doesn't look too happy about Zoe stealing it, does she?

Michele Whitacre is a portrait photographer serving Phoenix, Arizona and the surrounding area. Visit Michele's website at michelewhitacrephotography.com. Become a fan of Michele's work on Facebook. Follow Michele's updates on Twitter.

Macro Fun | Part 4

If you missed my other four posts about experimenting with a Macro Lens, you can find them here, here, here, and here.

Some of my favorite Macro Lens photographs taken by other photographers are of water droplets. So, I decided to try my hand at a few. Of course I'm not really a morning person (plus I live in the middle of the desert), so I had to fake it a bit. Instead of getting up to find some morning dew, I just turned on the hose and sprayed some nearby weeds and trees!

I love the detail of the reflect in the water droplet here...

This photo was a bit of a whoops, as I was trying to focus in on the water droplet and obviously I ended up with the leaf in focus instead.  But, I was amazed at the detail that was visible in the veins of the leaf and decided to include it for that reason...

This is a water droplet on the hose. If you look closely you can see a reflection of our rental house upside down in the drop of water...

And FINALLY, flowers!!!...

And there you have it!  A week's worth of photos from my Macro Lens Experiment!

So, now the looming question is.... Would I want to own this lens? I have to admit that shooting with this lens was TONS of fun, and I wasn't ready to return it by the time my week was up. I could have easily spent another few weeks experimenting with it. I really do think that I would enjoy having a Macro Lens, and I can see myself getting a bit more into nature photography if I owned one. That being said, I'm not sure that I would opt to purchase this exact lens. I felt like the lens was fairly heavy (and I'm not a wimp when it comes to lenses!) and I think it made it harder to hold the lens steady because I was getting tired from holding the lens up. I also felt like the auto focus wasn't very useful, so the USM basically just added useless weight. I haven't done any research on the options of Macro Lenses available, but if I was going to purchase one I would probably opt for a lighter weight lens, possibly without auto focus.

As always, thanks for stopping by and viewing my photos!

Michele Whitacre is a portrait photographer serving Phoenix, Arizona and the surrounding area. Visit Michele's website at michelewhitacrephotography.com. Become a fan of Michele's work on Facebook. Follow Michele's updates on Twitter.

Macro Fun | Part 3

If you missed my other three posts about experimenting with a Macro Lens, you can find them here, here and here.

When I took my Intro to Photography class, one of our first assignments was to photograph motion. I opted to take pictures of a dripping faucet for that assignment, and all things considered (like the fact that I still had no idea how to use my camera!) the photos didn't turn out half bad. I had a lot of fun taking those shots, and wanted to see what I could do with a faucet using the Macro Lens (and having a bit more knowledge under my belt about my camera).

Considering that I took all of these shots with a hand-held camera, I think they turned out pretty darn good.  I had a really hard time narrowing down my favorites so I've opted to include several different shots.  I just love how you can see the inverted faucet and water droplet reflected back inside of each of the droplets.  I used the flash for these images, and I like how you can see the star burst from the flash in some of the droplets, too...

So, what do you think? Can you pick a fav? I keep trying, but I just can't!

After playing with the water droplets, I decided to experiment with the lens and some random items around the house.  It was during this experiment that I really got a handle on the DOF of the lens.  Here are a few of the images:

The side of a quarter....

Instead of flower bouquets, the bridesmaids at our wedding carried bouquets of beads. The following two photos are close ups of those beads...

Lexi's eyelashes...

An apple...

And a plum...

I was going to take a series of extreme close-ups like the two above and hold a contest to guess what the images were, but sadly I ran out of time with the lens before I captured very many.  So, I just included a few here instead. Would you have known what they were if I hadn't told you?

Part 4 will be posted soon, so stop back by and you will FINALLY see some flower photos that I took with the Macro Lens.

Michele Whitacre is a portrait photographer serving Phoenix, Arizona and the surrounding area. Visit Michele's website at michelewhitacrephotography.com. Become a fan of Michele's work on Facebook. Follow Michele's updates on Twitter.