A lot of times when we’re travelling in the United Kingdom we don’t really plan a lot of what we’re going to do and rely upon finding things of interest when we arrive. This is especially true of zoos since they’re never high on the list of places to visit for us but if we spot a brochure in a hotel where we’re staying and it’s not too far and there isn’t anything more interesting around we will tend to visit them. This is why, during our stay in the West Country in 2014, we ended up popping along to Paignton Zoo for a few hours one day. We spent quite some time around the elephant enclosure where the solitary animal there – a rescue, I seem to recall – played around with a ball for a while and the various near-relatives in the primate family were also quite compelling to watch because of the striking intelligence behind the eyes.
The weather was good with very clear skies which worked well for some photos of the animals in the zoo but worked against pictures of some of the others depending on where their enclosures were relative to us. That said, I was quite pleased with a few of the shots that were taken looking more into the sun, one of which is included below along with a couple of other favourites of mine from the day. These pictures all show different ways of using the light to create atmosphere.
