In April of 2015, I bought a membership to the Oakland Zoo in Northern California when I retired in order to get some exercise and to learn to use my camera better. The only place I knew that I would be guaranteed a wide variety of things to point my camera at was the zoo. And being in the hills, walking there is certainly exercise.
As my photography skills grew, my photos got noticed by the Oakland Zoo’s Marketing and membership departments. They started using my photos for everything from maps to billboards, signs, Annual Reports, Calendars, membership cards, trading cards, buttons, stickers, etc.
I became an official volunteer for the zoo, so that I could enter the contests run by the Association of Zoos and Aquariums (AZA). That has resulted in my photos being used for the July 2017 and July 2019 calendar pages for the national organization.
I decided that I could learn a lot more about the animals at the zoo if I volunteered to be a Docent. After 14 Saturday classes, lots of homework, written and oral tests, I became a Docent in early 2018.
Along the way, I learned a lot about Photography from the instructors on the KelbyOne.com online training site. It occurred to me after helping many visitors at the Oakland Zoo with their photography, that I had developed a rather specific set of skills, and perhaps I should share that knowledge by teaching a class for KelbyOne.com.
I am proud to say that the class came out on February 13th, 2020.
I can be reached at steven@artofzootography.com