Taking photographs at Crocodiles of the World

Taking photographs at Crocodiles of the World

I’ve recently discovered the strange experience of visiting places I’ve been to before with my son, without him.  It’s really quite a weird feeling to actually be able to stand still and admire things without having to dash around at 90 miles an hour.  As I’ve mentioned before, this term my photography course is taking me out and about and a few weeks ago I spent a Friday morning taking photographs at Crocodiles of the World.

If you’ve not been before I can thoroughly recommend a trip to Crocodiles of the World, near Witney in Oxfordshire. My son and I had thoroughly enjoyed our visit, and feeding time is not to be missed.  I knew that taking photographs at Crocodiles of the World would be somewhat challenging, as we’d face taking photographs through glass, humidity, reflections, lighting issues and frenzied movement at feeding time.  But I’d forgotten about the other animals on show in the outdoors enclosures.

I met up with my class as the venue opened at 10am and headed indoors to meet the residents.  I used my 70-300mm lens on this trip and the majority of shots were taken on shutter priority.

In hindsight I probably should have got the tripod out of the car, but you live and learn.  The lizards were often quite tricky to capture, the lighting and reflections played havoc with my shots.

The snakes were playing hide and seek too.

Taking photographs at Crocodiles of the World

It was going to be an interesting and varied day and taking some shots outside took me back to more of my comfort zone really.  I opted for aperture priority to shoot the Kookaburras so I could get ride of the wire caging in the shots.

The meerkats are always a favourite of my sons so I knew I had to spend time taking photographs at Crocodiles of the World of these lovable creatures.

The monkeys had me thinking back to 80’s hairdos and my best friend and I heading out for a night on the town.

I rarely ever have the right lens on my camera when Red Kites are spotted, whilst taking photographs at Crocodiles of the World we looked up to see this lovely beast flying overhead.

Taking photographs at Crocodiles of the World

The otters had been having a lie in but finally came out to play.

Feeding time.

If I’m honest it wasn’t 100% successful but I did end up with one particular photo that I adore.

Taking photographs at Crocodiles of the World

Taking photographs at Crocodiles of the World was interesting, challenging and a very different experience when the whole focus was on the shots, rather than entertaining my son!  Next week I’ll be sharing some of my shots from our trip to the Oxford University Museum of Natural History, somewhere else I’d only ever visited with my son before.

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