Some photographers make a name for themselves by creating portraits of children, while others create similar images of wild animals. Photographer Robin Schwartz does both — at the same time.
Since 2002, Schwartz has been photographing her daughter Amelia while the young girl interacts with all kinds of creatures in the animal kingdom. Subjects have included everything from dogs and cats to monkeys, kangaroos, and elephants. Read more…
Photographers are supposed to document news rather than make it, but a clumsy German photographer had the ill fortune of doing the latter in the most horrible way this past Wednesday. The photographer was shooting at a media event at the Limbach-Oderfrohna zoo in Eastern Germany when he stepped backward and onto a three-week-old earless bunny named Til, instantly killing the little guy. Zoo officials had expected Til to join Germany’s growing list of international animal celebrities — a list that includes Knut the polar bear and Paul the octopus. The story offers a reminder for photographers everywhere: be aware of your surroundings when shooting.
Mark Rober — the guy behind the gaping-hole-in-torso costume — recently came up with a creative way of getting up close and personal with gorillas at his local zoo. It turns out that apes can’t resist looking at themselves in mirrors, so Rober drilled a hole in a mirror and pointed his iPhone’s camera through it. He was then able to snag some awesome footage that most visitors would never be able to capture. This trick may also work for other animals that are known to pass the mirror test of self-awareness, including dolphins, elephants, and certain birds.
How do you get a silverback gorilla to put a GoPro HD camera up to its face? Stuff the case full of raisins, of course!
This cheeky ape turned photographer for a day after being handed a high-definition camera by his keepers. Silverback gorilla Ya Kwanza, 27, happily snapped away at himself and his surroundings in his compound in Durrell Wildlife Park in Jersey. The gorilla even took a number of close-up shots before returning the camera to his keepers by throwing it over the wall of his enclosure. Staff at the park also captured the gorilla photographing himself with the indestructible camera, which was covered in honey and oats. [#]
Lesson learned: if you ever lose your camera to a silverback gorilla, ask nicely and they’ll throw it back.
Nonja, a 33-year-old orangutan in the Vienna Zoo, is quickly becoming one of the most popular photographers on the web. Her recently launched Facebook page is regularly updated with her most recent photographs, and has amassed tens of thousands of fans in the first week of being online.
Unlike other animal stunts seen on social networks such as Twitter, Nonja is in fact the photographer behind the photographs. Her camera of choice is a specially designed Samsung ST 1000 point-and-shoot camera that automatically uploads the photographs she makes.
In case you’re wondering, Nonja actually isn’t a genius ape that learned the art of photography. The trick behind the whole thing is that the camera is modified to dispense a raisin whenever the shutter is pressed.
However, after looking through Nonja’s photographs, I would go out on a limb and say that Nonja is probably the best non-human photographer in the world right now. Here’s a sampling of her recent work:
I’m thinking this is a self-portrait? I’m loving the emotion captured in this one.
This one must be titled “The Hitchhiker”.
Nonja’s attempt at a macro photograph without a macro lens.
Anyhow, either Nonja enjoys adding a little motion blur to most of her photographs, or she needs to improve her technique a little. We’re definitely looking forward to seeing how this awesome experiment goes!
A quick thought: Do you think apes could be trained to understand the very basics of actually a camera? Hmmm…
Nonja, a 33-year-old orangutan in the Vienna Zoo, is quickly becoming one of the most popular photographers on the web. Her recently launched 
