Downside Up

Was playing around with older photos from Zoo Kuala Lumpur.

Was concentrating on this one:

Not great, bad lighting, black creatures lit from above hanging upside down at the wrong time of day with the sun full out. Makes it hard to see any details or their heads and the contrast is harsh. Fill flash might have worked, but I wasn't that advanced back then.

I do have flashes now for the Canon, but I hardly use them.

They're inconvenient, too much hassle, and with a bit of a lens they propel the camera to 2 kilos. Let alone the fact that flash photography is darn complicated. As if taking a good photo isn't difficult enough...

Truth though is that this photo was taken with a Canon EOS 40D, which has the built in flash, I simply didn't realise I should use it during the day...

Anyway, playing around with the photo I thought: what if I turn the picture over, like they were standing?

And I found the result to be quite interesting (note that the crop is a bit different, so this one has more bats):

They transform into these elegant fashion models, wrapped in designer clothing, with the one in the corner about to break into dance (and perhaps song)... little Grace Jones'... you can almost see him tip-toeing around the others on some Tchaikovsky...

They also seem more vulnerable, standing up, and less intimidating... these guys just eat fruit by the way, so they're quite harmless...

Amazing faces also these bats. They somehow reminded me a bit of pictures of Egyptian gods, and after some googling it turns out I was thinking of Anubis, ancient Egyptian god, protector of the deceased and their tombs. The guy with the jackal head...

Still the not so great lighting, that didn't change :-)

Anyway, thought I should share...

Click on any of the photos above for the full new album of Zoo Kuala Lumpur with 21 photos.