This month marks 10 years since my first zoo trip in thirty years, Twycross, which I'm sure I went to as a child. Unlike the majority of members here I am sure, I didn't have a particular interest in animals or zoos as a child or as a younger adult. Twycross did not really light a passion for zoos and I still remember how grim I thought these cages were and still do when I see similar.
Congrats on the big 10 Don't have my first one as it was before digital uploading and sharing and I have never scanned all that stuff in! Like you though I didn't have the zoo hobby when I was a kid, it developed as I was travelling around for work etc (what else to do in a major city but find the zoo!) and then as I got back into photography and just making the most of the outdoors post pandemic. I enjoy animal photography and spend a lot of time at horse events, wildlife reserves etc but there's a real exotic feel to a zoo. It's this not that good picture taken at Hamerton that got me really going in the 'spend tonnes of my free time at the zoo with a camera' from last year onwards though - watching the little beasts speeding about was just brilliant. For me photography at the zoo makes the most of my trip and while I'd have gone for a few hours in the past, with my camera with me I can happily stay all day.
I went to Antwerp Zoo (Belgium) when I was younger with school, like between the age of 8 and 16. This is all way before 2000's. I don't think I ever took any pictures during those school trips. So here's the first I know I did take in 2007, digitally with my Nikon Coolpix 4800.
It was in I think 1989 at Los Angeles Zoo, a few years after I got into photography. A friend was a koala fanatic and a friend of hers knew the koala keeper and arranged a behind the scenes meet of one of the koalas. They asked me to go take pictures of her with the koala, so that was the first. They left but I stayed at the zoo to finish off the roll of film and was intrigued by two tigers sparring. That started my interest in zoos and wild cats, an interest that lasted three decades but has finally died.
