Me at the Big Cat Day, photos by Julie Smith
Me eye to eye with a lion, staring into those golden eyes as he stared right back at me! - this was something I'll never forget!I travelled down on the Friday night with my very own wildcat, JS and her family. We stayed for the weekend at J's in-laws in Essex, who were really welcoming and hospitable. It was great setting off on the Saturday morning in brilliant sunshine knowing we had a full day ahead for taking photos. We met up with several TPC site members for the first time and it was lovely to meet the real people behind the screen names. The centre is very well organised and the animals really cherished. The two keepers who accompanied us, Fraser and Kathy, told us all about the animals and their personalities. We got to touch lions and we also got "sprayed" by a tiger!
You'll be seeing lots of photos of cats over the next few weeks/months/years LOL but for now here are two snaps JS took of me with my compact camera. It's going to take me ages to look at all my shots, let alone edit them!
On the Sunday we went into London to see the Wildlife Photographer of the Year exhibition. It was really interesting to see the prizewinners. I was pleased to see Nikon users very well represented amongst the winners :)
5 comments:
Sounds like you had a great time. Looking forward to the photos.
Glad that you had fun and I like the pic of you!
photomeets are great fun...looking forward to seeing the photos!
I'm not sure that I ever want to be that close to a lion. I appreciate nature that can't eat me.
Big cats are amazing. Back in the late 70s when I was in high school, my high school actually owned the male tiger in the local zoo. I was one of four boys who would go get the tiger from the zoo, and with him in his cage, take him to school assemblies and football (american) games. I still am astounded that they let us do that.
Shasta, was different from our family's pet cat only in size and color. I see all of the same moves and focus in our house cat that I used to see in Shasta.
If you're bored some evening, I wrote a post about this last year, called: Shasta and the Tiger Crew". I have another pic of me and another guy with Shasta at the bottom of this post.
They're so impressive, and actually fun to be around as long as you are separated from them by sturdy cages or fencing.
Is that a D80? Sweet.
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