When I was young, probably around second or third grade, when I grew up I wanted to become a zoo keeper. In particular, at the San Diego Zoo, which I had heard much about, but never (even now) seen. As I grew older, and was finishing high school, I had it in my head to become a psychologist, helping people cope. And now, as an adult, and I should add largely through photography, I have come to see those two careers as largely the same thing.

My experience with zoos is perhaps now less one-dimensional than it was when I was a child, at least insofar as it is no longer an exclusively happy experience. It is still fascinating, and I still enjoy it, but now it is not without some degree of sadness that I had overlooked when I was younger. But perhaps what has changed most since I was younger is not so much that I appreciate the animals more than I did, nor less; I have learned to appreciate the people visiting as well. Young and old alike enjoy the zoo. And more than that, if you really listen to the conversations around you, you’ll find that this is a context in which the children can put their parents to shame in terms of both their breadth and depth of knowledge about these creatures they’re looking at.

So while zoos are not altogether happy, as they perhaps once were for me, neither are they altogether sad. But what I’ve started to see through the lens is that humans are quite possibly some of the strangest animals of them all, and sometimes I think that the animals have trained us, and not the other way around.

And so begins, in proper terms, this series. It is neither pro-zoo nor anti-zoo, though I suspect that many will attribute it to whichever cause they already personally hold. But for myself, this series lacks any intention beyond the most basic, and simple: I intend to see.

The scope of this project is larger than any I’ve undertaken yet, which will also necessitate the Kickstarter campaign that I will be bringing out very soon. This is so large, in fact, that I’ll have to run this project in a few phases. The first is simply image acquisition. To effectively explore a wide variety of settings and demographics in zoos, I would like to branch out beyond just the few nearby. In fact, to really get a complete picture of it, I will be visiting zoos, if possible, on all continents (excluding Antarctica, which lacks zoos completely, as far as I can tell). While I’ve already acquired images on North America for this, I will add one or two stops as well, those being San Diego (of course) and New York City. I’m still trying to work out the best ways to do the rest of the continents (Europe is straightforward, Africa is not), but there will also have to be some flexibility there so as to economize and not waste either time or money where it needn’t be wasted.

I’ll be trying to raise some money again through kickstarter, partially as a means of pre-sale, but the following phases will be book publication and gallery shows, respectively. But for now, thanks for reading, and enjoy the photos as they come.

-P