Monkeys

I’m continuing to work through my backlog. Sooner or later I’ll start calling it an archive and remove the guilt of not yet having posted so many images, but then I fear the impetus to actually publish them might go with it. Nope, sooner or later (although admittedly it’s more likely to be later) I intend to be caught up and in a state of equilibrium with my images. Until then, you’re going to have to make do with me posting things in whatever order seems appropriate at the time.

So then. Monkeys. We’re back at Woburn in 2012, on the photography trip my wife got me for Christmas the year before that also saw me achieving some decent shots of some lions and tigers. We’ve already looked at those big cats, so let’s now take a look at some small mammals.

1/125, f/5, ISO 800, 210mm

It’s been well documented in the past that I’m not a particularly great identifier of species. I have no idea what kind of monkeys this mother and baby are. It’s likely, in fact, that they’re not even technically monkeys. Apes, perhaps. If you happen to know, feel free to drop a note in the comments below. If not, I don’t think it matters, particularly. It shouldn’t interfere with the enjoyment of images themselves. Only the images can do that.

I had a bit of trouble on this day. The weather was well and truly British; it was an overcast, often soggy day, and the light suffered as a result, making for some occasionally dull, flat images. My talents at fixing that only go so far, with a tweak of the white balance and tint being most of the few weapons in my arsenal. I also made use of a slightly newer weapon: Color Efex Pro 4, a colour filter plugin for Aperture that came along with HDR Efex Pro 2 in the Nik Collection. I used this too to try to add a bit more warmth and depth to the images. It worked quite nicely where there was foliage involved, like in this next image, which is one of my favourites of the whole set.

1/80, f/5, ISO 640, 190mm

I don’t think I realised when I shot the image that I had this animal staring straight down the lens at me. I do sometimes seem to have luck in that regard. I managed to get a few of him staring straight at the camera, and this one has the best eyes, in my (often wrong) opinion. The others will be up on Flickr shortly.

As is a hazard when photographing apes, this next shot has a rather unashamed piece of gratuitous monkey penis. You have been warned.

1/60, f/5, ISO 640, 210mm

You’ll be pleased to know that’s the only bit of gratuitous penis in this post. Unless you’re into that sort of thing, in which case I’m sorry. But there’s still no more monkey penis.

In fact, we’re off to the other end of the spectrum again with another shot of the monkey baby that opened this post. Here, she’s wandered off on her own in the undergrowth.

1/160, f/5.6, ISO 800, 300mm

One of the other monkey-like things that may have been some sort of ape was this guy, who somehow always managed to look like a surprised old man.

1/160, f/5, ISO 800, 160mm

And in the background, some sort of black squirrel, which distracted us for a bit but always moved too quick to photograph.

1/125, f/5.6, ISO 800, 235mm

The best monkeys, however, were ones my wife and I saw whilst off the tour, in a part of the park anyone can get to. These looked like tiny alien monkeys, and despite the diminishing light at the end of the day I managed to get some decent shots of them.

1/200, f/4.5, ISO 2500, 90mm

Watching this guy eat this bit of carrot was fascinating, and the all seemed to come out really well, so I’ve kept most of them in.

1/200, f/4.5, ISO 2500, 90mm

1/200, f/4.5, ISO 2500, 90mm

1/200, f/4.5, ISO 2500, 90mm

1/200, f/4.5, ISO 2500, 90mm

I’m also quite fond of the bokeh in these shots, because I like a bit of bokeh.

Whilst they were on the floor, the monkeys were moving a bit quick and in poor light to capture, and when I caught them they were in group, making for a bit of a busy image. This one came out okay, though, as I caught one looking round.

1/320, f/4, ISO 2500, 70mm

For the most part, though, it was easier to catch them up on the branches of their climbing frame. In the fading light, I captured one silhouetted against the grey sky.

1/8000, f/4, ISO 2500, 75mm

As you can see, I left the ISO at 2500, meaning to get the silhouette the shutter fired at top speed, 1/8000th of a second. Ooops.

I’ve still got some great images from Woburn to share, but as they don’t contain any monkeys they’re not really appropriate for this post. They’ll be along when the time feels right, but next up will be… whatever feels right when I sit down to write it. This ‘work on whatever the mood takes me’ approach is both exciting and terrifying.

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