California Academy of Sciences Photo Contest

The California Academy of Sciences is having their annual photo contest! It ended today and I went over to Cal Academy a bunch of times to take shots to submit! It was super fun, and I love that every time I go there I see something new.  I've always been fascinated by animals and photographing these creatures in such a dark place posed quite a challenge for me.  I definitely got to put my manual camera setting skills to the test (and post processing skills of course)! I love CalAcademy!! The rules said the photos would be judged on composition, concept/creativity and technical skill... of course I tried to bring my own creativity to each shot and tried to get the animal's personality (if you will) to shine... and as always, try to work with a high level of compositional integrity.  Hopefully it will be enough to grab the judge's attention! I DID NOT USE FLASH OF ANY KIND.  While I was there I ran into a bunch of other "serious" photographers (people with serious cameras that is)... some of them were shooting with flash, someone else was shooting with an off camera flash.  If you're wondering, I went in as a purist, camera only, manual mode.  ...Some of these shots I took at ISO 6400 if you can believe it! After much deliberation, here are the shots that I ended up submitting... hope you like them! Which ones are your favorites? If you are on Flickr, sign in and "favorite" my photos to help me win the People's Choice Award! It took me about 2 hours to get this shot of the mantis shrimp. He would go in and out from under his piece of coral... I sat in front of his tank waiting for him to come out for so long, finally I gave up and came back the next day!! I really loved these turtles and this little guy was showing off his swimming skills! I spent over an hour taking shots of this turtle, it was so hard to decide which shots to use! This toad was standing upright as I approached the tank - crazy, right?! Everyone took shots of these frogs... I am so lucky I got this shot - it happened on a whim as I was passing by some people on the ramp in the rainforest... I stopped just for a second to see if I could spot any flying butterflies, when I looked straight in front of me and noticed this little guy just waiting for me to take his pic! It was crazy, no one else saw him... I was so happy! This frog was incredibly hard to find - he is super tiny, probably about an inch to an inch and a half long, and was hiding under a leaf. I found him on my 3rd visit... whew! Everyone took pics of this gecko. Apparently he is always sitting in the same spot... I love this little chameleon he is sooo cute (and tiny). He blends in with the branches in his tank, and he's only about 3" long! Another popular gecko at Cal Academy - almost everyone in the contest posted a photo of this guy (literally). I dont really know why I decided to submit it, I think the photo's pretty good, but not that unique in composition compared to the rest of the entries... Couldn't get enough of these toads. Not that they're THAT photogenic or anything... LOL. ...into the great wide open! Love boxfish, and always dreamed of someday having a cowfish. Just funny little fish, I discovered this entire section on my 3rd photo contest visit to CalAcademy. I can't believe I never saw this exhibit before!! SO COOL. What a face!