On March 21, 2017 I met my college friend, Brittany, at the Tennessee Aquarium. It was the start of my first road trip to my new wildlife job out west and the perfect stopping point.

I won’t go into any serious issues but getting to see how many people where there enjoying the Tennessee Aquarium and St. Louise Zoo, reminded me of how important aquarium and zoos are for helping educate the public on our beautiful wild world. This was the start of my journey to help wildlife and it was a strong reminder that zoos and aquariums help reach a large part of the population.

As a photographer I’ve always wanted to use my still photography to tell a story. So I decided to not only bring my camera with me to document what I saw but I wanted to approach it in a way that captured angles and emotions rather than just animals in cages.

I know for a fact that I will never see the majority of these animals in their natural habitat so I wanted to make a point of capturing them as a representation of their wild siblings. Hopefully these photos will help inspire someone to get into wildlife conservation. If anything, I highly recommend visiting the Tennessee Aquarium and St. Louise Zoo if you’re in town.

The animals

After visiting the Tennessee Aquarium I decided to stop at the zoo while going through St. Louis, Missouri.  

Especially when I found out that admission into the zoo was free! So I made a quick stop at the classic arch and made my way to the zoo.

The arch was an interesting design and honestly not that exciting to me, other than it was HUGE.

Like the aquarium, it was awe inspiring to be so close to such beautiful animals.

And another reminder how important zoos can be to help educate so that we can protect the animals in their natural habitat!

I didn’t spend as much time here as I did at the aquarium and only snapped a few shots.