After a busy weekend of shooting, I took today off and hung out with the family at Roger Williams Zoo in Providence RI. The weather was great, all the animals were out and active.

Zoos are a breeding ground for bad photography. Camera phone, after camera phone lined up to shoot a Giraffe that is 50 yards away. Or even better, a tablet camera thing, pointed at a foot of glass trying to capture a shot of a seal underwater. Why bother? What do people do with these pictures? I understand the ones with the kids or family in the foreground, they are nice to have as wallpaper or a screen saver, but the others baffle me. The only positive side effect is when someone like me shows up with a real camera, they tend to move to the side.  I heard more than once today a parent telling a kid that I was there to take a photo. I guess it is just different expectations, though to be honest, at some point you should just enjoy the view while you are there instead of cluttering up your cloud space with out of focus blurs.

My favorite did not happen today, it was a few years ago at the same zoo. A mean looking, little, elderly woman had a Polaroid camera, I think it was a 600, I have the same one. She was on the same path with us for a few exhibits and appeared to be alone. She walked up to an exhibit, snapped the Polaroid, put the photo in her purse than moved on to the next one. Never looking at the photo or the exhibit, just capturing the shot and rushing (rushing is relative at a certain age) off to the next one.  She got to the Moon Bear display, it is behind glass and again snapped, there is NO WAY she got a usable shot, it did not matter, out came the picture, into the purse it went and she was on her way.  It was like her nursing home was having a scavenger hunt or something.  I crack up every time we pass that exhibit.

I got a few shots today. The camera was down more than it was up, it was just nice to be out with the family on a 70 degree day in November. I figured the Eagle shot seemed fitting for Veteran’s Day. The rest of the shots can be see by clicking here, or check out the few at the bottom of the post. And since you are here, did you know you can follow the blog and have it sent each day? Simply add your email to the box on the right, or click follow at the bottom of the page. If you already have – thank you, maybe you know someone that might enjoy the dailypic – sharing is caring. Thank you.

tr/trp