That has been the highly consistent response from everyone when they heard about and saw our photos from the weekend. Long story short: we met and pet a couple of penguins as part of a private tour at SeaWorld San Diego - a surprise I arranged for the boyfriend's birthday.
Of course, it's en vogue right now to regard SeaWorld only with scathing vitriol given the release of the documentary Blackfish, but I find most such work to be unfairly one-sided, pushing one very specific agenda. And personally, while I detest making animals do stupid anthropomorphized tricks and disagree with that aspect of their business model, I do think there's value in having animals in a properly administrated zoo/aquarium setting for education purposes and to spread awareness of real conservation issues which are easy to ignore when they're occurring half a world away.
The up close tour was especially good for education and awareness - we were taken through the penguin encounter exhibits with a guide who provided a background on penguins and explained that as we head into the summer in the northern hemisphere, penguins are heading into winter, which is also their nesting and hatching season. To keep them on schedule with their natural habitat, the keepers gradually dim the lights and eventually turn them off entirely in the penguin exhibit to mimic the changing of the seasons. We went through a brief sanitation process, stepped through a foot bath, and proceeded to the offices and back area where we actually met a Macaroni penguin up close. We learned more about the species, anatomy, and SeaWorld's facilities and interacted briefly with her, including petting her gently on her head and back, which was everything I've ever dreamt it would be and more.
As part of the tour, we were also able to head into the back corner of the actual penguin encounter and see all of the birds they have on exhibit. Some of them were interested in our presence - in particular, a 30 year old male Emperor penguin named King Tut, who actually enjoys letting people pet him!! There is something so indescribably breathtaking about interacting with an actual emperor penguin - they're even more amazing in real life than even documentaries would suggest. Penguins are surprisingly soft and fluffy!! Their feathers are much softer than their waterproof qualities make them sound.
While we were at SeaWorld, we also saw a few other exhibits as well and fed some sea lions, but the penguins were absolutely, hands-down, the best part... and my best zoo/aquarium experience to date.
In terms of the photographic experience, the key this session brought to me was just the importance of a fast lens, the law of large numbers, and the importance of cropping. Especially with quick animals, I used the multi-shot feature to get a quick series of shots, resulting in at least one good shot from the bunch. In the penguin exhibit, I actually abandoned my DSLR altogether in favor of my iPhone because the DSLR was having trouble focusing in the dim lighting conditions. Additionally, since access was limited, I couldn't use the simple "just get closer" method to properly frame a shot. Thus, I had to ramp up the picture size and then crop many of the photos in post-editing to get visually interesting compositions and not just another snapshot.
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| Pair of Magellenic penguins from South America. Contrary to popular belief, not all penguins live on Antarctica & need frigid temperatures. These actually live in a mostly temperate environment & only need access to chilly waters. |
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| The macaroni penguin we met up close!! |
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| The penguin exhibit from the back corner, the lights outside the exhibit were turned off and they were gradually dimming the exhibit inside to mimic the approaching Antarctic winter. |
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| King Tut. Petting a penguin is totally in my Top 10 of best life experiences so far!! |
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| Dreams do come true!! |
Active Shooting Hours: 3
Review Hours: 2
Hours To Date: 134
