What better way to kick off spring break than a trip to the National Zoological Park? My brother, Alex, and a number of my friends came home from UVA this week and thought it’d be nice for an impromptu journey into DC. Much to the surprise of my father and I, my brother asked if he could borrow one of the DSLR’s to start shooting around UVA. In terms of men of the So household who are photographers, my brother was the last frontier. We decided to let him take the 5D into DC with us and I gave him an extremely simplified breakdown of manual shooting during the metro in.  To be honest, he picked it up remarkably quick and was able to properly expose a photo within his first 5 tries. I made sure to tell him to try to photograph things in a variety of difficult situations such as against the sky and inside a dark museum (see his shot against the sky). 

I am absolutely in love with the NZP. I have gone several times by myself and even dragged my friends here for my 18th birthday. The animals are all somewhat sentimental to me after the photography project I did on them as well as the sheer amount of research and applications I have sent to work/ intern for the NZP. Nothing too remarkable today but I did capture the curious face of one of the Red Pandas (as you can see I too can use some work shooting into the sky). 

Sunday was the usual relaxed day around the house. The weather was so remarkable that we decided to do some yard work. Some cousins of mine came over and we all decided to head to the nearby lake for some fishing. It was another wonderful opportunity for my brother to develop his photography skills. This time he had to figure out how to properly expose the sky, water and trees/ houses of a landscape. Of course the day couldn’t end without the cliche photographer’s-photo-of-a-photographer. 

All in all, another wonderful weekend to be thankful for. I’m starting this week a bit behind and have a lot to do but things do seem hopeful. 

Here’s to good people, good times and good things to come.

Trek On,

Chris