Armed with endless passion and creativity, photographers are among the most envied individuals because of the opportunities their profession presents: traveling, connecting with people from all walks of life, tasting different cuisines, experiencing culture after culture. To the untrained eye, it is a craft easily dismissed as easy breezy. People often assume that in order to take good photos, one only needs to understand concepts like angles and lighting. However, it’s more than just a point and shoot method and a series of lucky, perfectly timed shots.
Japanese photographer mamekoro51 is a photographer whose subject isn’t food or famous models – he captures photos of baby animals. Imagine the gushing and squealing if you were in his shoes! During a trip to the Inokashira Natural Cultural Park in Tokyo, the photographer was fortunate enough to meet an adorable family of meerkats. The winning moment was coming across a darling baby meerkat who was nothing but camera shy.
Meerkats are omnivorous, squirrel-sized mammals often found in deserts and grasslands. They live in burrows which they dig using their sharp claws. Meerkats work together as a family. Each member of the mob has a role in gathering food and protecting the rest of the family, especially their young. They even have “babysitters” while the rest head out to look for food. The bushy-haired animals have a keen sense of smell and an adorable reflex when under threat – they attempt to look fierce by lying on their backs, baring their teeth and showing their claws. Their safe space helps keep them safe from predators. Despite having limited exposure to the outside world, meerkats are actually social animals.
Meerkats have excellent eyesight, too. The mob and the camera shy baby must have already spotted the photographer from afar before he even caught sight of them. Because of their friendly nature, they stayed in their chosen spot probably waiting to see what kind of interaction he would initiate. It was a smooth and friendly moment that most photographers and tourists would do well to take note of.
Sometimes, one can be lucky enough to see these cute animals up close without having to travel far. Meerkats are only out during the day, making it easy for mamekoro51 to enjoy the close encounter and take good photographs. In the series of photos he shared on his Twitter page, you can see how hesitant and meek the baby meerkat was and how it kept interaction to a minimum by staying at a safe distance and occasionally peeking from behind a wall.
Little did it know that it being camera shy would turn out to be the highlight of the photographer’s trip. While mamekoro51 could have easily shifted his focus to other animals – those who could interact more and unintentionally display fierceness, he decided to keep his lenses fixed on the charming baby meerkat.
His post on Twitter has garnered over a hundred thousand retweets and almost four hundred thousand likes.
There really is nothing more delightful than shy baby animals attempting to interact with humans.
Please SHARE this with your friends and family.
