Minnesota Zoo

Jeff, the wonderful creature whom I married and bear my child, whose sole purpose is to put other people's happiness in front of him, whom recognizes people's passion and put some thoughts on how to embrace their passion, got me a DSLR. Despite of the fact that many years ago, when we were dating, he got me my first SLR, a Nikon, I dropped the bloody thing, shatterred the inside components and swore to God he will never get me another SLR.

He knows how passionate I am with my photos. He knows I spend a lot of time, salvaging, correcting colors on each of every single one of my shots from the Exilim point-and-shoot that I've had for many years. No matter how blurry, out of focus, bad lighting, no lighting the pictures are, I always try to find the true beauty behind those pictures.

We have a camping trip to the North Shore coming up and he thought it would be really cool to have Christmas in July and an early anniversary gift. The boy surprised me with a Canon Rebel XTi equipped with EF-S 18-55mm lens just a couple of weeks ago. A week later, I found a Tamron AF 75-300mm Macro lens under my pillow. I melted and was speechless. What did I do right to deserve this man?

I was done with the smaller lens quite fast and was itching to try out the bigger and bad ass Tamron as I held up that sucker to my groin and said to Jeff "So this is how photographers size up their manhood!"

So, Canon, Tamron and I went off to the Minnesota Zoo. The boys went too. I could have sworn it was 100 degrees. It had rained in the morning and got me (and Treyton, my four-year old) worried. We both starred outside the window with this disappointing face and hoping and praying that the rain would stop. We both chanted "Rain, rain, go away, come again, another day". Just before we do our rain dance, the Gods heard our chants and made the rain stop, Jeff said "Let's go to the Zoo". Both Treyton and I went, "YAY" jumped out and hurried our asses up to get ready. We both gathered "our toys" and head to the car with the biggest grin on our faces. Yes, Jeff had two four-year olds that day to take care of.

I was having a hard time with the zoom lens, for being brand new, it was tight. My sweaty right-eye kept fogging the view-finder and by the end of the day my left-eye was tired from squinting. This is my first time using a manual focus. Although I thought I had focused clearly, the tiny LCD was a bad judgement, I was a bit dissapointed with the results after seeing them on the monitor. It was especially challenging trying to snap fish. Not only the lighting is almost non- existence, the water reflections, the constant movement, the kids finger-print on the glass, made it very challenging to get a sharp picture. A tripod is definitely a must have in this situation.

Here are the few of the hundreds snapshots that I took. I have a lot to learn and I am hoping my left eye will adjust with constant strain from squinting so much and that the right eye will get more training on spotting sharp detailed focus. Thank you for your time and I appreciate your feedback.

This one animal called Treyton, in spite of its wild nature, was behaving well.