On Streets We Call The Zoo
I spent Saturday morning on a sixth grade field trip to Salt Lake City's Hogle Zoo. While it's always great to have the opportunity to photograph interesting subjects, seeing the animals in captivity was a somber experience for me. Many of them appeared to be bored and depressed. The orangutan featured in today's capture is one example of this. He seemed to be very uninterested with the whole zoo scene, spending his time motionlessly staring at nothing in particular.
Canon 5D, Canon 70-200 f/4L lens with 1.4x extender - 1/50 second, f/5.6, ISO 160
7 Comments:
I agree. Often seeing animals like this is a "somber experience." It always forces me to ask myself, "Am I living in a world of my own captivity. Have I let work and chores and whatever build a cage around me so that to outsiders I look like this, "bored and depressed"? I'm I living like an animal in the "zoo scene" or am I really living?
Nice photo. It's thought provoking.
Have I let work and chores and whatever build a cage around me so that to outsiders I look like this, "bored and depressed"?
I think the more important question is "Have I let work and chores and whatever build a cage around me so that I am bored and depressed?" Personally, I don't really care what I look like to outsiders.
Am I living like an animal in the "zoo scene" or am I really living?
Are these mutually exclusive options?
Er, I think that guy's an orangutan, not a gorilla.
"I think that guy's an orangutan"
Noted and changed. Thanks.
urangutan is originated from Indonesia and Malaysia, and this one in your pic had travelled thousand of miles away from home..the words 'urang'means a person and 'utan' means jungle.
Have had the same feelings looking at animals in zoos -- very few zoo settings seem to successfully give animals what they'd need to be happy.
I know there are some who'd think that gratuitous anthropomorphizing on my part, but if you've seen horses in a corral playing "soccer" with oversized balls, or bears in a zoo where the keepers hide food and treats in clever ways, you'd see something that looks like play and happiness to my eyes.
Very nice, melancholic shot, BTW.
Last year when I went to the zoo, I felt sorry for the gorillas who looked bored.
Then shortly after that, I read how their numbers are being decimated in the wild, due to poachers and habitat encroachment.
There are worse things than being bored...............
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