Black Panther - Wildlife

Black Panther

I finally went on my 2012 Memphis Tennessee Zoo adventure.  We've been talking about the trip for months, and because time was so limited, it was a quick, half a day excursion.  Of course, the big cats are my favorite, so we spent quite a bit of time in "Cat Country".  I took over 1200 photographs in just under 3 hours.  And I've spent the past 2 days going through them, trashing the bad ones, finding my keepers, and deciding on some so-so ones which might need a little extra work.  All I can say is thank God for digital cameras!

The black panther was one that produced so-so pictures.  He was very hard to photograph, especially with cage bars in front of him.  My lens has a lovely trait of making those cage bars "disappear" when it's focused in just the right way and at just the right angle, and I tried so hard with this fella to get some good shots.  He was very active and between his constant movements and those darn cage bars, this whole event was a major challenge!

My goal with any animal is to show the eyes clearly, or to convey a certain mood or message.  Some of my funny photos might not make great artistic portraits, but they will make a cute or funny card in my greeting card shop where I'm featuring some of my humorous images.  I was bound and determined to create a fabulous artistic image with a panther for my home decor market.  Out of all the black panther photos, and after trying several different textures and color adjustments, I finally came up with one which worked and gave me the look I was after.

The Black Panther photo above is the first of many to come.  I'm photographing a dog show on and off over the next 4 days, but my goal is to get at least one new artistic photo of a zoo creature completed each day.  By the time I'm done, you can have an entire collection of your favorite zoo animals for your home or office!  In the meantime, I've put up a small selection of my zoo photos in this album, if you'd like to browse through them.  I'd love for you to leave a comment on the animal you love the best!  Keep watching the blog (subscribe to my blog RSS feed using this link: http://www.jaiart.com/blog.rss ) for the newest zoo animals released in this collection.

InJoy,

Jai