A Gorilla Portrait (and more)

I went to the zoo for about an hour yesterday. Just a quick jaunt to get some walking in and snap a few photos.  It being cool, with kids in school and in the mid afternoon on a Friday, there weren’t a lot of people.  One benefit to that was having the gorilla exhibit more or less to myself.

Colo, the first Gorilla born in captivity (and the oldest currently in captivity), was lounging on her belly, thoughtfully watching the few visitors there. At one point, I was the only person there, so she was quite focused on me.  I made sure to get down to the same level she was on to make the shot more intimate, and I put my lens directly up to the glass to eliminate reflections.  Shooting at f/1.8 made sure that any spots or scratches on the glass were not visible in the final image.  The result is below.

In addition to the above, I searched around for some shots I hadn’t really taken before.  The leopard was lounging on a tree close to the glass, but had her head turned away.  So I opted for a different sort of shot:

And the tortoises, while usually rather boring subjects, made for an interesting photo when they lumbered over to each other, and for just one second, rested their heads together.  Luckily I happened to be there with my camera at the ready: