As I recall the Nashville Zoo was another one that honored the half price reciprocal admission and then slapped on a hefty parking charge. Ha Ha Gotcha. Nashville has a great bus system that we could catch on the corner outside our motel, change buses downtown, and get off a reasonable walk from the entrance. No parking fee and we don't use gas. If you can take the time the bus is a wonderful thing.
On our first visit to the zoo I sort of got lost in the Merecats and can't find that I photographed anything else. The zoo enclosure was very photographer friendly and these guys with their antics are just wonderful.
Wandering the Arcade shopping mall downtown I saw a local photographer was giving a seminar at the zoo the following week. Unfortunately I cannot find the guy's name. Normally I scan the brochure for events but this was handled through e-mail and we have changed providers and lost all that ancient history.
The real bummer was taking a photograph of the Cumberland River the day before the seminar and having my good DSLR camera break. Something happened with the shutter control to give variable timing when it worked at all..
They had this whole series of close encounters and I would really have liked to have the good lens selection but at least I could fall back on the smaller camera I used for our Great Train Adventure. How about getting up close and personal with a snake in the grass.
Despite the camera problem it was a wonderful seminar and I learned some neat tricks I continue to use every day. Things like set cloudy white balance in general and about 400 ASA or higher depending on conditions. Use wide apeture for maximum shutter speed, get down on their level, and focus on the eye as the window to the soul. He also used odd frame sizes to emphasize the subject which I rarely do on the web site.
With the DSLR finally and hopefully permanently repaired a stop on the way back south to dad in Shreveport, Louisiana was almost mandatory.
One trick I was trying out here is to walk slowly back and forth in front of the big cats and they will come up to investigate. I'm not sure if it really works. These guys were active but that may have been just their choice without my involvement at all. Normally solitary they were together and that may be a factor also.
Getting over to the aquarium area the big guy is a Rhinoceros Iguana and the skinny one is a Spiny-tailed Iguana. These enclosures have really weird lighting so the colors are probably not right
They claim the Side Necked Turtle can lay safe on the bottom and reach his long neck up for a breath. He can hold his breath a lot longer than I had to wait around for him to try so I have to take their word for that..
I did not get the identification for the spotted ray or the catfish like critter but the Flamingo is rather obvious.
And finishing up where I started is the Merecats. Again I can and have just sat and watched them for hours and also wasted a lot of electrons.