February 2009 Family Aquarium Outing

Photo heavy! Please be patient!

After a *lovely* Valentine's Day (note the dripping sarcasm), Luke and DH were both feeling much better, so we went ahead with our plans to visit the Georgia Aquarium with my parents (who did not spend Friday night at our house as originally planned; I'm so glad they are flexible and understanding!). Mom had been once with my aunt and cousin. Luke had also been once. DH and I had been twice, once with Luke and once by ourselves to see the Titanic Aquatic exhibit. My father had never been.

The entryway has these two walls with fish swimming by. It is hard to get a good picture of people with the fish because of the lighting conditions. A long enough exposure to let in enough light makes the fish blurry because they are moving. A short exposure to freeze the fish leaves your human subject in the dark. Use of a flash usually reflects off the glass, ruining the shot of the fish. I think this one turned out okay. Took a little tweaking in Picasa, but it'll do.



The main atrium has decorative lighting effects on the wall screens and the floor lighting effects. Again, not the clearest shot due to the long exposure and the lack of willingness of the subject to hold still, but not bad.



He petted the stingrays, much less hesitant about it this time than last.



And we checked out the tanks with the turtle. And this lobster was just fascinated with me! I was using the 2-second timer so that pushing the button to take the picture would not cause camera shake. The timer includes a blinking orange light. This lobster started on the far side of the tank. Every time I took a photo, with the flashing light, it moved closer. When the flashing stopped, he stopped. It was so weird! It finally got right up to the glass, but none of those shots turned out. It was large, too, with those long barbs sticking out right and left over 2 feet from tip to tip. Kind-of freaky watching it come so close to the glass.



Then we discovered the alligator tank. These were about 4-footers. I forget how old the person said they were. Luke has been fascinated with reptiles (joy) ever since we took him to the zoo in Arkansas. He didn't mind looking at them, but when we asked him to stand right next to the glass to have his picture made, he wasn't too sure about that, especially when they came right up to the glass after that. "The better to see you with, my dear!" LOL



I was really excited to take him to see the penguins and the otters again, but neither of those panned out like I thought. The penguin exhibit is closed until like 2010, and the otters.... well, they weren't very exciting this visit. It did give me a chance to notice more about their enclosure, though, which is really well decorated in a Tibetan theme.



Mom got the money shot of the Beluga whales with her brand new camera. As in, "we gave it to her that morning" kind of brand new.



And of course, we all took a crack at good whale shark photos:



Mom and Dad both got great jellyfish shots:



And I got a little distracted by a 3-foot model (understandable to anyone who knows me):



We didn't stay too long. Luke doesn't have much patience for these sorts of things, and he was already tired from being sick the previous day. Still, I think we all had a good time.



Currently feeling: fishy