It's been a long time

I thought this would be an appropriate title for this set of images due in part that is has been a very long time since I've been to the zoo. I recently received an assignment/challenge from my friend Paul who is sometimes referred to as "The Teacher" to get some shots from the zoo. He has shot a lot of good images at the zoo in Carolina and gave somewhat of a field guide of "How to" shall we say get good shots there. He knows how i feel about challenges so i quickly accepted this assignment and headed to the zoo. On his field guide he put everything you needed for a good day of shooting accept he referred to the kids as sometimes "unruly". Well the kids at my zoo were a step beyond that, it took some real "patience" to get some of these shots. I thought that as long as i stayed away from their territory the "children's petting zoo" i would be ok, but i quickly found out that the whole dang zoo is their territory. I'm sure my kids were the same way the first time they saw an animal that they had only seen in books or on television. However i do know that as a parent i would have made sure that they observed the don't push or step on the photographer sign. All in all it was a good day of shooting and i appreciate the "Teacher" for challenging me to step outside the box and focus my lens at the animals. Enjoy.