My two Reid Park Zoo friends and I LOVED this baby tapir. He was near the back of the enclosure, but as we photographed him, he walked slowly closer, then came right up to us at a chain link gate on the end. We were baby talking to him and adoring him right up against the gate (and yes as a man I am not ashamed to admit it!). Then I said to the other photographer among us, maybe if we walk over to the right he will follow us over for a better photo. Sure enough it worked!
The rest of the enclosure are waist high telephone poles (seen in background) and we looked over and talked to him and he just hung out by us. Someone tall like me could actually reach down and pet him, which I resisted and did not do (really). What I could not resist doing, however, was putting on a wide angle lens, prefocusing to a minimum focus distance with a fairly small aperture, reaching down with one hand and firing the camera directly in front of the cute guy!
When I first got there he was sleeping in the front corner of the exhibit. So, when I got done touring the zoo I went back to see if he was up. Sure enough he was, and when i was walking over to him, he was up on the fence wanting some attention. He loved my camera, as it got several kisses I then needed to wipe off to keep taking pics of him. He was soooo sweet and friendly I did not want to leave him. <3 Love <3
