Field Trip to the Aquarium

In retrospect, it was a terrible idea to visit the new Ripley’s Aquarium of Canada during the holidays, with the crowds of horrible children pushing and shoving, and their parents sticking their iPads in people’s faces to take terrible direct-flash 0.7 megapixel photos.  Nevertheless, when John suggested a field trip to the new Toronto aquarium that opened in October, I jumped at the chance.  Our main purpose was to take pictures of the octopuses, in preparation for a food post about cooking octopus.  (Yes, I’ve been told that’s kind of twisted.)

Sometimes, as a photographer, you approach a situation with a clear shot in mind; something that will truly capture a subject in its all its majesty:

octopus

… but instead you end up with this:

Octopus

Or, this:

Octopus

Nevermind the aforementioned horrible children and their parents, nor the tiny octopus tank with curved glass that distorts everything, nor the reflections, nor the lack of light… octopuses are nocturnal.  We were at the aquarium for almost 3 hours, and when we looped back through to visit them again at the end of our trip, neither of them had moved.  So, I ended up with the worst octopus photos in the history of octopus photos.

Luckily, John can’t fire me because I own the Crustcrumbs domain (ha HA!), so I’m going to share some other pictures of fish from the aquarium.  However, fish and seafood are so not my thing, so I cannot promise the scientific accuracy of any of my captions.  On the other hand, seafood is John’s thing, so if you stay tuned later this week, he’s going to write more about the edible kind of fish.  He might even use their real names.

aquarium
Shiny fish.

Aquarium field trip
Drunk fish. Sarah took a pretty good video of these guys, who seem to just float around all day going “whoa…”

Aquarium field trip
Starfish!

Aquarium field trip
Colourfish!  Bonus Crustcrumbs game: guess how many children found “Nemo” while we were looking at this tank?

(Highlight for the answer: ALL OF THEM.  ALL OF THE CHILDREN FOUND NEMO.)

Aquarium field trip
Boringfish.

Aquarium field trip
Lazy shark who rests on top of the shark tunnel.

Aquarium field trip
Fat sharks.  (I’m not crazy, right?  These sharks are pretty chubby, yes?)

Aquarium field trip
They still have pretty sharp teeth, though.

Aquarium field trip
Here’s a pile of dead sharks that look like rocks.  (Note: not actually dead.)

Aquarium field trip
Fabulous glitterfish.

Aquarium field trip
HEY GUYS!

Aquarium field trip
This is a stingray photobombing a picture of another stingray.

Aquarium field tripAquarium field trip
Jellyfish.

So, I may not have taken a really good photo of an octopus, but I did take an average snapshot of a stuffed octopus in the gift shop.

Aquarium field trip

Stay tuned on Thursday for octopus.  Cooked, this time, and much more cooperative as a photography subject.

3 Comments Field Trip to the Aquarium

  1. Dana

    Wow, the photos of everything else but the octopus are amazing! The best octopus enclosure I’ve ever seen was at the aquarium on Maui. They had a cube shaped tank divided diagonally down the centre. In one half they had a small-ish octopus and in the other half were reef fish. The octopus was trying to hunt the fish through the glass, so it was moving, trying to get around the partition and changing colours. It was amazing!

    Reply
    1. JenJen

      Thanks for your comments on the pictures. 🙂 I actually went to the Maui Ocean Centre in October, but I don’t remember this awesome-sounding octopus enclosure!

      Reply
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