The tame wildlife that I observed during my eight days in the Galapagos Islands, where the mammals, reptiles, and even birds, didn’t swim or crawl or fly away, made for some easy and fantastic photo opportunities. And I must say there was a plethora of photo opps – about 1450 of them in total, to be exact.
The Eye of an Oystercatcher
To make my photography diverse, I actually had two digital cameras with me, which I carried at all times. I had my smaller Canon PowerShot point-and-shoot-type, with a 3x zoom lens. Because of its size, I could strap it around my wrist, and let it dangle so that I could use my second camera without having to put the Canon away.
Landscapes of the Galapagos Islands
I hung my second camera around my neck, a Nikon Coolpix P80 with 18x zoom capabilities. This camera is not an SLR, but the zoom worked amazingly, whether the wildlife was only a few feet away, or 50 or 100 feet away, or more. And it was quite light in weight. The animals were so close to me that on many occasions the zoom lens was not even needed, but having the zoom lens made those hundreds upon hundreds of photo opps all that much better.
More Landscapes of the Galapagos Islands
I used the Canon mostly for general landscape shots, but also for Quito pictures, pictures of the yacht and in the yacht, including the food, sunrises and sunsets, and for some back-up pictures.
The Nikon was for the wildlife, for the plethora of tame wildlife – whether I zoomed in on their eyes, composed a head shot or a full body shot, captured a behavior, or photographed an animal in its natural habitat.
Windows in Quito
I found myself taking many pictures not only of the same species of animal, but also taking three or four or ten or even more pictures of the same animal within that species. What I mean is that when I saw one Sea Lion, or one Iguana, or one Finch, or one Blue-Footed Booby, on one particular island, doing some particular behavior, I usually took several pictures of that particular creature.
The Same Baby Sea Lion
And then a few feet down the path, I might see the same animal of the same species, but doing something different, so I then took several pictures of that one. And then a few feet down the path, there was yet another animal of the same species…ok you get the point. I couldn’t help it! I just didn’t get tired of taking yet another picture of a Sea Lion, or of an Iguana, or of a Finch, or of a Blue-Footed Booby!!
The Same Blue-Footed Booby
I need to add here, that some of the passengers on my yacht also did not get tired of taking pictures. They, too, would take three or four or ten or more photos of the same animals, just as I was taking. To joke with us, our naturalist guide would tell us that there was a limit of 50 photos per animal! Of course, we did not believe him…
There were several reasons I kept taking pictures of the same animal:
*Different angles – from close-ups to full body to within their habitat
*Different sizes and ages – from eggs to babies to immatures to adults
Baby Frigatebird Close Up (Too cute!)
*Different behaviors – from moving eggs to courtship to walking to eating to sleeping
*Different positions or postures – from sitting to standing to flying
*Different locations – from the ground to trees to rocks to the water to the sky
Adult and Baby Nazca Booby
*Different backgrounds – from different islands to different landscapes
*Different families – from adults with babies to two adults to two babies
Also, I just found many of the animals just cute and fascinating!
At times, I could have sworn that the animals knew I was taking pictures of them, and they even seemed to cooperate and smile!
An Iguana Posing and Smiling (?)
Oh, and by the way, did you know that the 1450 digital photos that I took would have been about 40 rolls of 36-exposure film? Now that’s a plethora!
Sweet Travels!
All photos by Debby