Virginia Safari Park

Phyxius

I was down near Natural Bridge, Va last week for because I was showing in the World Percheron Congress at the Virginia Horse Center. I escaped for a day only to get a phone call asking me to hurry back in time to ride out as part of a color guard. I happened to be at the Safari Park at the time being "attacked" by some wild animals. So, to make a bad photographing situation (sitting in a car with tons of animals begging for food at the windows) worse I now had to hurry. Oh, and it started raining. BUT, it was fun! Word of warning though...if you feed any of the birds be SURE to hold the bucket out the window, they're messy! Oh, and the llamas are greedy.

The first critter I saw was this Rocky Mountain Elk -


Around the corner was this Scotch Highland fuzz ball (technical term ) He mad some funny faces at me.


He was good friends with the swamp buffalo (who thought nasal hygiene was of the utmost importance)-


and a watusi cattle family -


All of the animals are pretty greedy, but this particular llama wasn't happy the car behind me didn't have any feed so, the chase was on! (My 70-300 lens couldn't quite get him in focus though )


There were also lots of fallow deer including this warrior -


And this little cutie (eek, what's that grey haze in the bottom right corner?!)


This little zebra was quite talkative!


The camels were very gentle eaters and you can see some fall color behind this bactrain camel


The bison knew just how to get their portion of the feed as demonstrated by this fellow and a young park visitor.


Check out the horns on this little Black buck. I have a shot of one on the grass, but I'm very unhappy with the color (grass) and depth of field (too open of an aperature made icky DOF).


Not a very interesting shot, these guys stayed away at the end of my 300mm, but I thought they were cool looking animals. Axis deer family.


So, I know they aren't terribly interesting and I would've liked more of that infamous "pop", but for drive by shooting over 3 miles and 30 minutes I'm happy enough.

Awais Yaqub

nice series !

Phyxius

Awais Yaqub wrote:

nice series !

Thank you Awais! I wish I had had more time to spend there, it was like speed photography. I don't know when I'll get a chance to get out to the zoo, but I really want to go after seeing all the wonderful zoo shots people have taken.

dbaker1221

very nice series

Harryb

Excellent set. It looks like a wonderful place to visit.

Dick on Aruba

Great series, well done!

I like the 2nd the most but I would clone out the horn at botton-right-corner.

Thanks for sharing.

Dick.

Phyxius

Dick on Aruba wrote:

Great series, well done!

I like the 2nd the most but I would clone out the horn at botton-right-corner.

Thanks for sharing.

Dick.

Thanks!!!
I'm not a super cloner, but here's my attempt. (I also tried to get rid of the swamp buffalos above him.)
Original -

Edit-


Here are a couple more of his faces -


Any suggestions on cloning better? What's the "feathering" I've seen mentioned in other posts?

Thanks again!