James P. Jones || Photographer

As you may have noticed, photographyri hasn't been updated for a couple of weeks. We just moved it to a newer server with more speed and capacity, so now I'm back to updating.

Last week, Saturday, I went out to the Roger Williams Park Zoo. It is an exceptional zoo and I really like it. The first Saturday of each week is free for Providence residents, but we decided to pay the extra $2 to enter the special exhibit - Flutterby. It is a great little greenhouse filled with butterflies of all kinds. It was a wonderful little paradise, that incidentally protected us from the torrential rainstorm that washed over everything while we were inside.

I was shooting digital, not film, with auto-focus lenses for convenience. I didn't have a macro lense with me (well, Amie had one on her that is also Nikon mount, but I didn't use it). Instead I primarily shot with the Nikon 85mm f1.8 AFD. It is a great lens with a very shallow depth of field, but a beautiful look at wide aperture. I've provided a comparison of just a slight shift of focus at wide aperture (in these photos, the f-stop was at 2.2). Amazing.

I think flutterby is a wonderful opportunity for any photographer to get some great close-up images. The butterflies are beautiful, but equally impressive is the array of flowers and vegetation. Whoever constructed the landscape did a great job and the whole scene is very attractive. Very conducive to capturing images.

As I have grown older I have come to have a slightly different perspective of zoos. I love zoos; visiting them were some of the happiest memories of my childhood (my friends know I still don't forgive Dukakis for closing Stone Zoo, but that is a separate issue). But, as I looked at the elephants, with "Alice" on the left of this image rocking her head back and forth, I was left wondering if this is how it should be. The elephant exhibit appears to be under construction so it seems that the elephants are confined to this small room for the time being (small being relative to their size). The swaying motion of Alice just conveyed a sense of distress or restlessness, amplified by the artificial lighting. I had heard once that swaying was a sign of mental concern in elephants in captivity, a sign of their general distress. Whether this is true or not, I don't know. In stark contrast to the oddly still air, there must have been 10 people in the room in near silence, the zoo keeper was upbeat and fed them carrots with obvious affection for the animals. I know zookeepers love animals, the dilemma must be greater for them than for me. But, they are no doubt acutely aware of their educational mission and therefore offset any discomfort at caging these magnificent beasts. A mixed bag. I look forward to when they are out of this little room once more.

I was hoping that the Polar Bears would be back, but regretfully a park employee told me that we can expect them in 2011. I don't plan much that far out there, so 2011 sounds like a while away. With any luck I'll see polar bears before 2011, even if it means I have to go to Alaska. There was one interesting affect of the heavy rain; the snow leopard was very active. I guess cats don't like rain no matter what the size, so he (or she) was pacing the enclosure before laying out on a stone shelf. I wasn't sure if it was displeasure or relief from the heat. It all looks the same. The downside is that the light was so poor that it was hard to get a shot, but I didn't mind. It was simply amazing to see this beautiful creature staring me down - safely on the other side of a fence.