Adobe Lightroom and the Toronto Zoo....

Welcome back,  

So I’ve been fairly busy since the last post.   Working lots of hours hasn’t left me a lot of time to do what I really wanted to do which was go shoot something.. anything.   I did use my evenings, when I wasn’t too tired, to download and teach myself Adobe Light Room 3, which just came out in beta form. 

Now, since not everyone that reads this (helllllloooo.. is there anyone out there?!) knows, I do have a background in Adobe products.  I was trained, many many moons ago, on Photoshop, and illustrator.   I sort of kept up to date with Photoshop but I’ve not touched Illustrator in about 10 yrs now.   
So for learning Light Room, although it is a rather complex program I found that I was able to pick up the basics pretty darn quickly.  I watched a bunch of video tutorials and read some blogs but mostly I just fiddled with the software and figured it out as I went along.   

“Adobe® Photoshop® Lightroom® 2 software is essential for today's digital photography workflow. Now you can quickly import, process, manage, and showcase your images — from one shot to an entire shoot.” – www.adobe.com/products/photoshoplightroom

 I gotta say.. I AM SUPER LOVING THIS PROGRAM!  It’s easy to use once you get the hang of it.  And its awesome for organizing your pictures into collections and even which of the pics you like and which you don’t can be catalogued so you can just view those later on for final processing.  It’s the old darkroom in digital form.  It’s absolutely amazing.  I can’t say enough about this program haha.

So finally after chomping at the bit to get out with my camera, I finally was able to go out on Monday Nov. 9/09 to the Toronto Zoo.  The weather was awesome. (seriously.. ..I took my coat off for most of the day) Cloudy so the lighting was amazing, and the animals were super cooperative.    We even managed to catch the Lion Feeding Time.   Gosh, those lions were gorgeous.  I was completely taken in by the male’s eyes.  They were creepy, yet outstanding.

 

The polar bears (one of my faves) were a tad disappointing for only one reason.. they apparently rolled in the mud earlier that day and were so dirty they looked like giant brown bears :p   Silly fuzzy teddybears :P

Besides the lions, the Olive Baboons and the Grizzly Bears were the stars of the show.  First time I’ve seen the bears at the zoo do more than sleep.  Lol.  They were up and about playing in water, walking around, they even got into a bit of a Bear Scuffle.  (I sure as hell wasn’t going to go in and break up the fight though.. no sir not me :P)

Anyway photos from that kick ass excursion are posted on my flickr acct.   Come take a peek. <3

http://www.flickr.com/photos/empy08/sets/72157622786080406/

Until next time....

Jenn M.