Crossing More Adventures Off the Bucket List

Elle July 1, 2014

Everyone should have a bucket list and actively plan to experience things on that list. If you're me, you have multiple bucket lists covering a variety of activities. This year, I managed to cross off 2 items on the "Interact with Cool Animals" list within the course of 2 months:

Pet a Penguin: done!!
Feed some Ungulates

Yes, I used the word "ungulates" - partly because it's a funny sounding word and partly because it sounds way more intelligent and downright cool compared with "rhinos & giraffes."

Originally, my birthday was supposed to entail trekking through Santa Barbara wine country with a new wide angle lens birthday present in tow. That plan was pretty much obliterated once I was rear-ended the week before my birthday and prescribed muscle relaxants for the ensuing back pain... aka drinking centric activities were going to be a no go.

No matter, I decided I wasn't going to let that ruin my day and decided I wanted to do something so memorable, I would look back years from now and remember the fantastic birthday I had and not have a rear-end collision define this 2014's marking of another revolution around the sun.

That something memorable turned out to be feeding giraffes and rhinoceroses at the San Diego Zoo Safari Park as part of their caravan safari, which basically was a 2 hour drive through the exhibit!! The guide provided all kinds of facts and explained animal behaviors as they were happening right before our eyes. I think it could have been better only if Sir David Attenborough himself had been there narrating in his dignified British accent. Something I took away from the experience is that rhinos are actually rather docile and love apples!!

Not the best time of day for photography and most of these pictures ended up being more snapshot-y than artistic image, but it was still an amazing experience. And I'm proud of the fact that I have seemingly fixed my under-exposure problem by checking the histogram outputs and not just relying on the internal light meter.

All in all, I can't wait to head back during more favorable lighting to photograph more interesting animals, having a membership is the best!

Rhino smelling & listening to our caravan... apparently, their eyesight isn't great.

Fun fact - rhinos actually wear down & shape their horns to their liking and said horns are made of keratin

Fed a rhino!! Contrary to popular belief, they're actually so docile and sweet... the cows of the savannah!!

Giraffe interested in the acacia leaves we've got

Making the giraffe reach for it! I love her expression and that purple tongue in this!!

Crossing another one off the "Interact with Cool Animals" bucket list!

Alright, didn't get to play with the tigers, but the new Tiger Trail exhibit was really cool!! Actually took this photo through glass & managed to minimize the reflection & glare.

More Safari to See!

Active Shooting Hours: 3 Review Hours: 1 Hours to Date: 159

Mmm... 2kids Beer...

Elle May 7, 2014

I realize that it's a little early in the morning to be posting about beer, but it is Hump Day, after all. Not to mention, my latest life goal is to go to bed earlier and get up earlier than the masses to get more of what I want to do (i.e. reading, blogging, plotting world domination, etc.) done. At least for the past two weeks, I've been successful at that endeavor and once past the initial alarm-induced groan, haven't regretted getting up early at all.

Anyway, back to the wort of the matter. I spent the past weekend in San Diego, which is never quite complete without a stop for craft beer. Moreover, in my opinion, no trip to San Diego is complete without a stop specifically at 2kids Brewing Company - a nanobrewery with a flair for unusual ales, but none of the pretense that typically comes with that kind of self-description. I've known brewers Sam & Rob since high school and have watched them go from beer connoisseurs to prolific homebrewers to successful business owners with the opening of their tasting room nearly a year ago. And had the privilege of drinking some tasty and wittily named beer all along the way.

While I've been to their establishment previously, it was early on in this project and I felt that I didn't do their beer justice with the pictures I took then. It was exciting to return with camera in tow to properly capture some of their brews.

Photographically speaking, the challenge I experienced here was the indoor lighting. In the past several months, I have found myself increasingly preferring to shoot in natural, outdoor light, but that presents a major limitations when the interesting stuff is actually inside. To make this even more of a challenge (she says as if the following was intentional), we went to 2kids directly after dinner out and I had forgotten to bring my flash bounce along. I only had my trusty 35mm lens and built-in pop up flash at my disposal. No matter, I managed for the most part with some guerrilla flash diffusers improvised from my hand, a coaster, a translucent envelope, and a dollar bill. Unexpectedly, the best results were obtained between my hand and the back of the coaster.

In any case, if you find yourself in the San Diego area, you should go check out 2kids, taste their brews, and have a chat with Sam & Rob yourself. Address and tasting room hours are below - they also come up on Google and Yelp searches for anyone like me who relies almost entirely on various device(s) to navigate through life.

2kids Brewing Company
8680 Miralani Dr. #123
San Diego, CA 92126

Tasting Room Hours:
Thursday: 3:00 - 9:00pm
Friday: 3:00 - 10:00pm
Saturday: 1:00 - 10:00pm
Sunday: 1:00 - 8:00pm

Its 5 o'clock somewhere!

Taps

The beer is so clear, you can see the effervescence. Almost poetry.
Diffusing the flash didn't work so well here, unfortunately.

Dat foam.

My favorite: Winning! Chocolate Stout. All I need is some vanilla ice cream...

I really did buy a growler and a half. And then some. These just happened to make the photo.

More Cheers

Active Shooting Hours: 1.5 hours
Review Hours: 2.5 hours
Hours to Date: 138

You Can Pet Them!?

Elle May 4, 2014

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.

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.

The macaroni penguin we met up close!!

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.