Wild Place Project

      I read a blog post a while ago about photography tips to get you inspired. One of those tips was to make the effort to keep going back to the same place a number of times to get yourself more familiar and to challenge yourself to create new images with the same subject. I went to Wild Place in Bristol at the start of April, it is kind of a cross between a zoo (with much larger enclosures than Bristol zoo in the city) a kids play area and wild gardens. 

      I really enjoyed walking round the area as it is very open and quiet, even if it is just off of the motorway! There are lots of wild flowers all around with lots of different colours and they also have their own gardens which are maintained by staff. The walk round takes you to different animal enclosures - the meerkats and lemurs are the most fun I think. There is also a lot for kids to do including lots of mini playgrounds with tyres and dens and also a barefoot walk with lots of textures and materials, including mud, for kids to run through. 

      I signed up for an annual pass after the end of my first trip and now I have been back twice. I have only been in the week but even though there are lots of kids, the area is so spread out it has felt incredibly quiet and nice to just walk around alone and explore in the woods and gardens. 

      Each time I have visited I have taken a different lense with me which I think has helped get different images each time. With my Nikon D5100 I use:

Sigma 17-50mm f2.8
Nikon 35mm Prime f1.8
Nikon 55-200mm f4-5.6

      Todays shots were with the zoom lense, which was interesting as it helped me get some super close up of animals faces like the meerkat below:

      The lemurs are in an enclosure you can walk around which means I could get really close to them. There have been a few new babies over the past couple of months which has been good to capture. 

      These brown lemurs (feel free to help me out with the species) are very friendly, I got the photo of this one in the tree just before one poo-ed on my arm... not so fun!

      As well as the larger animals I have found this area great for getting up really close to flowers and smaller bugs. I think I may have to get a macro lense or extension tubes at some point so I can get even closer!