Young Bonobo
Tiny, Whiskered Owl
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All images © Eric Jason Brock and not to be used without permission.
My “Over To You” Article – Click For Larger Size
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All images © Eric Jason Brock and not to be used without permission.
I decided to do a bit of a “refresh” on this website! I wanted it to have a bit more of a “website” look than just a blog, but didn’t want to get rid of the blog section. Bare with me as it grows – the website building thing is still pretty new to me!
The “Home” page is now a static page with the above image on it. You can move around the site by using the little menu bar.
The Blog is still here – just click on Blog!
I now have a “Portfolio” section where I will put my current favorite 20 images…they will change from time to time as I create more images and my favorites change.
A couple of the menu headings have a sub menu also so be aware of that and check those out too.
Thanks for checking out EJB Photography everybody!!
“Malayan Tiger”
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One thing I always look at when photographing animals is the eyes. It can be pretty cool to lock eyes with a wild animal, and it can really make for better photographs as well.
“Polar Bear Emerging From Water”
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“Pink Flamingo”
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“Cougar”
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With a little patience when shooting, you can get great eye contact with your subject and that really gives he image a little something special. ”Catch Lights” in the eyes also give life to the subject…that little sparkle in the eyes!
“Female Lowland Gorilla”
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Gorillas are a great subject to start with because they often will “watch back” at you while you are watching them and you can usually get a lot of eye contact with them. They are also very expressive and are always fun to just watch. The portrait of the male below is an image I made of Kwashi at the Cincinnati Zoo this summer before he passed away at the end of October, 2012. He was always a willing subject that seemed to pose for pictures…I will miss having the opportunity to photograph him, but I’m thankful that I have a lot of images of him from my frequent visits to the zoo.
“Kwashi, 1982-2012″
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Most animals that are in zoos are very used to people and most will ignore any yelling or whistling to get their attention. Sometimes I wear a bright colored shirt or jacket that will grab their attention for a bit, but usually you just have to be patient…sooner or later they will look at you!
“Snow Leopard”
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You don’t always have to have eyes staring back at you to get a good shot though, but you should always try and have the eyes be your point of focus, just like when shooting a portrait of a person.
“Snow Leopard”
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“Macaque”
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“A Pair Of Macaques”
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Some animals are more than willing to give you great eye contact – Ring Tailed Lemurs will often stop what they are doing and watch your every move with their big, bright eyes, but they are fast movers so you can’t hesitate to take the shot once you’ve composed because while they might keep their eyes on you, they tend to move around a lot while doing it!
“Ring Tailed Lemur”
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Don’t forget birds. They’re colorful and come in a huge variety, but they can be one of the hardest subjects to get accurate focus on due sometimes to their smaller size and sometimes because they just move around so much and so fast!
“Rainbow Lorikeet”
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“Peacock”
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At the end of the day when you’re getting tired, some of the animals probably are too so you may have to act quick to get a shot before those heavy eyelids close for a nap!
“Sleepy Polar Bear”
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So the next time you are making a photograph, whether it’s a person or an animal, remember to get those eyes in focus and strive for some good eye contact – it’ll make for better images!
All images © Eric Jason Brock and not to be used without permission.
Coney Island Balloon Glow – Cincinnati, Ohio
Another genre of photography that I’m really starting to enjoy is evening photography. Twilight photography, night photography…whatever you want to call it – photography after the sun starts to set or already has set.
Other than requiring a tripod, it’s not really that much different than photographing during the day as long as you know your equipment and how to best utilize it for the much lower light levels.
Franklin Park Conservatory - Columbus, Ohio
Some scenes will allow you some time to dial in the best exposure. The above shot of the awesome Franklin Park Conservatory is such a shot. Every evening, the Conservatory comes alive with constantly changing colors and you can stand there all evening if you wish, tweaking your settings to get various results. Other scenes, such as the balloon shot at the beginning of this article aren’t necessarily hard, but the light at the time of evening when most balloon glows tend to be changes fairly rapidly, so you need to be aware of your settings a lot more…they can totally change in as little as a couple of minutes.
Roebling Bridge & Fireworks – Cincinnati, Ohio
Fireworks can be challenging because most of the time, you just don’t know exactly what kind of fireworks you’re going to get and unless it is a repeating show that you know very well, the timing of your shots can be tricky. You can watch for the shells going up and if you’re lucky you can sort of get into the rhythm of the explosions. There are a few different ways to shoot fireworks – some people open the shutter and leave it open and cover the front of the lens with something dark in between explosions. I usually use the “bulb” mode on my Nikons and time the shutter being open by feel. Depending on the individual explosions, after awhile you kind of get a feeling for how long you should keep the shutter open and when there’s too much light going into the lens or when there hasn’t been enough. The best thing with fireworks is too shoot A LOT of frames and to try and balance the ambient light of the scene with the actual explosions.
Whatever you want to call it, evening photography can be a lot of fun and there’s no reason to put your camera away when the sun goes down!
All images © Eric Jason Brock and not to be used without permission.
Red Tailed Hawk, Cincinnati Zoo
As a Zoo Member of the Cincinnati Zoo and Botanical Gardens, I often go down to the zoo to photograph. The Cincinnati Zoo really is one of the best zoos in the country and there are always great subjects to shoot. They have Zoo Blooms in the spring and you can photograph there for hours without taking a single picture of an animal. They also have Zoo Babies early in the season, as well as many other events throughout the year.
Lowland Gorilla, Cincinnati Zoo
Some of my favorite subjects are the Mexican Gray Wolves and the Gorillas. I also love the Wings of Wonder birdhouse and I’ve gotten many great butterfly images in the butterfly exhibit. The White Lions are also great as are the Polar Bears.
Sleeping Polar Bear, Cincinnati Zoo
Contemplative Polar Bear, Cincinnati Zoo
The animals at the zoo, like all creatures, have good days and bad days so it is always a unique experience when you go to the zoo to photograph. One day you may find the bears all just want to sleep while the lions are active. Other times you may focus more on the birds and butterflies because maybe the summer heat has a lot of the animals seeking shade. The great thing about the zoo is that there are so many great animals that you can always find something to shoot!
White Lion, Cincinnati Zoo
White Lion Yawn, Cincinnati Zoo
A couple of weeks ago, the Cincinnati Zoo opened their new Cat Canyon exhibit to the public. It promises to yield great images and I was there on Member’s Night the day before it opened officially to the public, but unfortunately it was at the beginning of the bad storms that came through the area that knocked out power for thousands of people. While I didn’t lose power at home, my photo-buddy Nathan and I were forced to leave before getting anything we’d consider “good” due to lightning and pouring rain! Even if we had been dumb enough to stay out in the lightning, thunder and rain, the animals were smart enough to take some shelter and weren’t feeling very photogenic that evening anyway! We are planning a return trip ASAP to “break in” Cat Canyon with our cameras.
Owl, Cincinnati Zoo
When shooting some of the indoor subjects like birds or butterflies, I will usually set the D7000 at an ISO rating of 640 or 800 to get good shutter speeds since I’m handholding the camera. The 70-300 has a very good Vibration Control mechanism in it, and the D7000 has really low noise at higher ISO settings so I don’t even worry about using the higher ISO settings. What noise there is with the higher settings looks more like film grain than digital sensor noise I think.
Mexican Gray Wolf, Cincinnati Zoo
I hope you all enjoy the collection of black & white zoo images I’ve posted here and hope you’ll come back soon to see more pictures in the future…as much as I love the zoo, I’m sure there will be plenty more zoo pictures coming soon!
All images © Eric Jason Brock and not to be used without permission.
Union Terminal, Cincinnati
I recently had the opportunity to take kind of a unique tour of the Union Terminal a few weeks ago. It was what they call the “High Steel” tour, but with some special added bonuses! Normally this tour would not be free and it seems they only do it once or twice a year, but a fellow Instagram user and a couple of women that work at the Museum Center in the Union Terminal put together a special day for a select group of about 14-15 people that are involved with some sort of social media. Their idea was to give us a unique look at the building, but to also get the word out that the building is in need of some repairs and the funding for such repairs basically comes from the public. There were a few photographers, a few bloggers, etc.
Union Terminal Rotunda Interior
We were allowed access to the building that is normally off limits to the public, but even more special we were allowed to photograph it which is normally NOT allowed. The one negative was that no tripods were allowed, so we had to handhold our cameras which wouldn’t normally be that bad, but to a photographer that likes to get the best possible shot, the extremely low light in a lot of the parts of the building we were in just didn’t allow for good pictures…pictures that I would post to the public as a photographer! Even though some parts didn’t allow for the best photography, the tour was SO cool that even if I didn’t take a single picture it would have been worth it. We got to climb (and climb, and climb!) the NARROW stairway that leads up into the actual rotunda, the dome part of the building that gives it it’s “Hall of Justice” appearance! (Actually, rumor has it that the Terminal was the influence for the cartoon artists that created the Hall of Justice on the Super Friends!) It was a tiring climb to say the least, it was hot, and it was awesome. We were allowed to carefully go out one at a time and peek down through the small holes that they run cables through to hang things such as the big American flag on the inside of the rotunda which was pretty surreal to be that high up! We got to walk through a very narrow “hallway” that is between the two sets of windows that are in the face of the rotunda and also go up into the clock that you see on the front of the building. We got to go into the old President’s office and also what was the old Tower A where they controlled the trains that were coming and going throughout the day back when they had tons of trains moving through the station everyday.
Tower A Interior
I was even able to get a pretty decent HDR shot inside of Tower A even though I had to handhold the camera. (For those of you unfamiliar with HDR, long story short is you take multiple shots of the same scene at different exposures and then layer them to get a wider dynamic range image…something that is simple with a tripod, not so much handheld due to the fact that each image has to be exactly aligned to look right.)
Union Terminal “Catacombs”
Making the tour even more special was our “tour guide”…he was extremely knowledgeable about the history of the building and had a great sense of humor as well, and he was patient and made sure those of us taking pictures had enough time to “get the shot”. We eventually made it out onto the roof of the building behind the big dome.
Union Terminal Roof Rear
After close to 3 hours of the tour, I was running short on time and asked the guide how much more there was going to be and he said about and hour and a half or maybe a bit longer! I unfortunately had to leave before the tour was totally finished, but I was happy to hear that they only went one more place after I left and decided to save the rest for another time when they can get all of us back together again. On my way out, I squatted down and rested my elbows on the edge of the big fountain in the front and got the shot at the top of the front of the Terminal which ended up being my favorite shot I got that day.
I’ve always liked the building, but learning all that we did during our tour made me appreciate the Union Terminal even more.
Fleischmann Crypt Reflection In Pond, Spring Grove Cemetery & Arboretum
A great place for photography in the Cincinnati area is a cemetery of all places. Spring Grove Cemetery & Arbortetum is a wonderfully photographic place. It was officially opened in 1845 and was dedicated in 2007 as a National Historic Landmark. There are several “champion” trees on the grounds and lots of wildflowers and wildlife that call Spring Grove home.
Several familiar names in the history of Cincinnati are buried in Spring Grove including Taft, Kroger, Proctor, Gamble, Fleischmann, and many Civil War generals including Hooker.
If you are a photographer in the area and have never shot there, you owe it to yourself to spend a day at Spring Grove with your camera gear.
Mexican Gray Wolves, Cincinnati Zoo & Botanical Gardens
Thank you for stopping by Eric Jason Brock Photography. I plan to use this blog to display some of my photography and hopefully interact with some of you out there! I start by posting an image I made earlier in 2012 of “Maya” and “Sedona”, two Mexican Gray Wolves from the Cincinnati Zoo & Botanical Gardens. I’m a zoo member and photograph there quite often throughout the year, and photographs I’ve created have been featured by their publicity department several times.
Please stay tuned!
