Janet Brien's photos with the keyword: primate

Last week, one of my dreams came true and I got to go to the San Francisco Zoo with a camera!!! What a day it was!! I came home with hundreds of pictures taken on my trusty old Canon SX30 IS super zoom camera, and that night I presented my favorite collage of my trip to SF, brimming with animals of all sorts! I promised that I'd show larger versions when I got home, and I finally had some time to work on a few! Here is one of my favorite pictures of the day. This gorgeous chimpanzee was sitting up on a platform, just hanging out and eyeing the crowd. I was very awed by this fellow and tried to be as respectful as I could while I silently took pictures, using submissive body language, eyes down with slow movements. I'm not sure what I was doing correctly but this lovely ape kept looking directly at me, though there were many others watching and taking pictures. When I moved, the chimpanzee followed me with its eyes, not the others. An uncanny, amazing and unforgettable experience, I find his expression to be both curious and profoundly sad. :( You may be surprised to learn that this specific eye contact happened to me more than once with other primates there! It was amazing to me.

What fun to see this magnificent male Mandrill baboon walking around! I was fascinated by this fellow and the females he was with, and so were countless other people...it wasn't easy to fight my way in to get pictures, but eventually I got my chance! My favorite picture is unfortunately a bit blurry, so I can't make it full size as we all want...what a shame it's not crystal clear, that grimace is just amazing and I was very lucky to capture this at all! Since I couldn't enlarge that one, I decided to make a collage of some of the pictures I got! :) Isn't he handsome! :)