Handsome Hansen

In North Carolina, I found myself working with some of the most spectacular people and animals. Twenty minutes from my parent’s home there is a small sliver of paradise that is home to incredible animals that you would never expect to see. For a few years of my life, I was able to volunteer at the Animal Park at the Conservators Center by photographing the beautiful animals housed there. This did not come easily though. I had to build up my reputation not only to the people that worked there and called it home, but also to the animals that lived there. This process does not happen overnight or even within a month. I just had to spend any free time I had at the park to gain the trust of all those who were there. Because I was photographing these animals I had to get closer than the average person. This meant I needed training to keep myself safe, but more importantly to keep the animals safe from my equipment. For all of the enclosures, there are two layers of fencing, and to take pictures, I needed to get up to that interior barrier. This meant that sometimes I was within a foot of these animals. My training taught me not only how to read their behaviors, but also how to look into their eyes and also be able to tell what they were about to do while keeping cool as a cucumber. It also taught me how to work well with other photo blockers (people that would watch out for animals while I was taking pictures) at the park. It honestly feels a lot like poker. Hansen is a very handsome lion that lives at the Animal Park, and he happens to live in one of the most easily photographed enclosures. This allowed me to easily blur out backgrounds and make clean images. The tough part about photographing lions is they sleep for most of the day — up to 18 hours, to be exact. This can make it very difficult, especially if they know you well enough not to be alarmed when you’re around. I took this image earlier on in my time at the Animal Park when Hansen was still interested in me, whether that be my scent, sound of my voice, my weird clicky box also known as a camera, or just the attention I gave him. On this day, he was very interested in me or my photoblocker, because he started walking towards me. Neither I nor the blocker I had sensed or saw any behaviors that would tell us he didn’t want us here. This allowed me to take pictures of his beautiful facial features. His face itself tells its own story from the day that he was a cub all the way up until I took that picture. Every scratch, eyelash, and look in his eyes is telling the story of Hansen.