Chester Zoo is one of the largest in Britain. About once a year I treat myself to a visit to a zoo. These days it is a treat as the cost o entry is spiralling, but I fully realise that the cost of keeping them open and viable must be astronomic! I also have mixed feelings about keeping animals captive, but I tell myself that these days the enclosures, although still just that, are reasonably spacious for the animal in question. I guess they have a less brutal and more cared for life than they might in the wild, at least.
This visit I took with me my Nikon F3, and my “broken” Nikkor ED 180mm f2.8. It’s a lovely lens for sure, but the auto focus is faulty – as the F3 isn’t auto focus, I leave the lens set to M (manual focus) and carry on as if everything is fine! It’s a good performer if a bit of a lump! I don’t use it much – but a visit to the zoo is a good excuse! All the images in this post are on Ilford Delta 400, processed in DDX.
Chester Zoo was opened in 1931 by George Mottershead. His family owned a garden centre near Crewe, and as a boy he collected lizards and bugs that arrived with the imported exotic plants. His collection grew, and after a visit to a Zoo in Manchester, his interest in owning a zoo of his own grew. Quite ground breaking in it’s time for not using the iron bars and cages of the Victorians – Chester Zoo was one of the first to pioneer water, moats and ditches as natural barriers. Today (according to WiKi) “It is the most-visited wildlife attraction in Britain / in 2007 Forbes described it as one of the fifteen best zoos in the world / in 2017, it was named as the best zoo in the UK and third in the world by TripAdvisor”.
I also used a roll of colour – but that’s for another post!
S.H.O.U.T. 