Monday Already

The weekends just seem to fly by...even the year has passed quickly.  It's so hard to believe that it's almost September...already!  Today, I didn't get out and shoot, but I spent most of my morning working on images and I also set aside several hours a week to just study...to learn...and to practice what I'm learning.  In the photography world there is almost something new to learn, especially in my case being so new to the dslr world.
Below is a image I captured one day while walking through the zoo and it just hit me, well, I almost walked smack into it, but it was a beautiful and quite large spider web.  There's so much more to shoot at the zoo besides the animals.

Luckily I had lots of green trees in the background which helped with the field depth here and really added to the shot.  After the shot, I stood there for a few minutes basically in awe, and thought about the work that must've went into creating such a masterpiece.  Sad to say, I'm sure it didn't last long after I moved on as it was almost in the middle of the main walking path.

Also including one of my recent and favorite shots of the Ring-Tailed lemur.  These guys are awesome to watch and such beautiful animals.  No guys...they are NOT monkeys.  I have to say this at least 4 or 5 times whenever I'm working the exhibit as a Docent.  I know this one turned out a bit on the dark side, and yes, I could've lightened it up a bit, but I chose not too.  All I did was resize for posting...no other editing was done.
That's it for now!  Hope to get some shooting in this week and will have more coming up.  Thanks for stopping by and I hope everyone has a great week! :-)

Flamingo Friday at Nashville Zoo at Grassmere

I'm a day late with this one, sorry...I had a busy, yet productive day yesterday.  I'll do my best to get two posts in today, the first one being from yesterday.  Some of you know, I also volunteer as a docent here at the Nashville Zoo at Grassmere, and yesterday morning we had the opening of our brand new Flamingo Lagoon.  Now normally I'm not much of a bird person, but have been getting into bird watching and bird photography here lately, so I couldn't pass up the chance to photograph some Carribean Flamingo's, up close and personal...well, maybe not that close at first as the crowd was a large one...Everyone was so stoked to finally get to see these beautiful creatures.  For those of you who may not be familiar with Flamingos, the Caribbean Flamingo is one of the larger Flamingos and most vivid in color, ranging from pink to a orange-pink.  They have one of the longest life spans of all the birds and can live up to 40 yrs.  The males are about 20% bigger than the females, so they can usually be picked out among the flock.  The Caribbean Flamingo, is also known as the American Flamingo, and they are closely related to the Greater Chilean Flamingo. 

More on their facts later, but for now will leave you with some images from yesterday, and you can always see more on my pbase page at www.pbase.com/pamelaparton .   For now, enjoy the pics and I'll try and be back later today with today's actual post. ;^)

Blessed With A Beautiful Day

Today was absolutely gorgeous and a great day to be outside with nature.  Here in Middle TN, we've experienced one of the hottest summers we've had, and the month of July and first two weeks in August, it was very little rain, with temps in the mid to upper 90's, with really high humidity.  Today it was around 85 with little to NO humidity....Awesome.  Not posting much today as I'm getting ready for a busy morning on Friday.  I'm also a Docent at the Nashville Zoo at Grassmere and our Brand new Flamingo Lagoon is opening up tomorrow.  A lot of people are really excited!  I'll be on hand for a bit and hopefully to get some great pictures of the opening ceremony, so stay tuned for that.  Until then, I leave you with a few shots over the past couple of days.  I hope everyone has a great Friday! ;^)

Brand New Start

Not new to the world of photography by any means, but only recently as February upgraded to a Digital SLR camera.  I've been taking pictures since I was a very young girl, and then sometimes you just grow up and life gets in the way, not always working out the way you'd planned.  I started getting back into my passion about a year ago when I lost my full-time job, and have been working on it since.  I want this dream to become a reality and I feel I'm getting one step closer everyday.  I've had several blogs in the past, but never could seem to get into updating them everyday...or even every week for that matter, but my plans are to make this one grow and to help me get my photography out there and recognized.  I'm by no means a Pro, and to me my definition of a "Pro" is someone who makes over half of their income from their craft.  Someday I hope to be in that category. 

I'm also working to getting a new website up and going and will post the link when it is ready, but first I want to bore you with some details about...me.   Animals and photography have always been my passion in life, along with writting, and I've worked with animals professionally for the past 4 yrs, well up until August of last year.  My best images, I believe, are my pet portraits, and I also shoot Floral and Landscape.  Always open to the challenge of shooting new subjects.  I'm basically self-taught, and I continue to learn things everyday.  Still considering the school thing so I can learn the more "technical" side, but for now I'm satisfied with learning on my own, and by trial and error.  I've never been one for the classroom.

That's about it for now, but will leave you with some images I've shot over the past month and I will be updating the page often, so be sure and stop back by.  Thanks so much for stopping by and please feel free to leave any comments! :^)