Day Out At Dublin Zoo

As I briefly mentioned in my last blog, on Saturday I headed up to Dublin Zoo with my mum. I was lucky enough to get to come along to a Canon photography masterclass run by Canon and photographer Mike Brown. 

As the class started at 10 a.m. and we live in Sligo, we had to get up at 6 in the morning (probably the worst moment of my life so far, lazy girl problems) and endure the 3 hour train journey to Dublin. Thankfully 30 minutes into the journey I fell asleep for 2 hours, so it's like I barely travelled at all. Not so fortunate for the other passengers who probably had to watch me drool and snore for 2 hours...

We 'legged it' (mum walked briskly, I walked at the same pace I usually do) to a taxi as it was 10 a.m. already. When we arrived at the zoo it was like The Krypton Factor trying to find where the event was being held. Eventually we did it and managed to only miss a small part of Mike Brown's presentation - which, by the way, was intriguing and made me feel like my photography skills were akin to that of a blind chimpanzee (I can barely even spell the word 'aperture'). On a positive note, I learned quite a few helpful tips as I am an amateur when it comes to photography, unlike my mother who puts me to shame.

After the presentation we were allowed to wander around the zoo at our leisure, which I thought was a wonderful idea as it allowed us to choose what we wanted to photograph. Most people headed for the recently born baby elephant, of course, but he seemed to be camera shy as he hid behind his mother so unfortunately I didn't get a photo of him. I assure you he's adorable, though.

We spent around 2 and a half hours walking around taking pictures and by the end I'm sure my mum was fed up of me badgering her to let me have a go of her big lens (oo-er). I didn't get as many good pictures as I'd have liked - I'm blaming it on the fact a lot of the animals I would've liked to snap were hiding or asleep and the fact I didn't have a big enough zoom - but the few pictures I did decide to upload I'm pretty chuffed with.

We then headed back to the building where Canon assistants allowed us to print some of our pictures from snazzy Canon printers. Two of my favourite pictures I took got displayed in the building and I even got to take home a blown up (as in enlarged, it wasn't so bad they threw a grenade at it) version of one of my pictures home.

My mother and I also got excited over a rabbit and a robin we saw in the zoo - typical us, go to a zoo full of exotic animals and get excited over a robin. It's the little things.

All in all it was a great day, thanks to Canon and the Sunday Times Sunday Club for letting me come along. It's nice to do something different once in a while and hopefully I'll continue to improve my photography skills.