It had been a while since I visited the Brookfield Zoo. Since my last visit, the Zoo opened a new exhibit--the Hamill Family Wild Encounters. One of the attractions within the space is a free fly area for hundreds of parakeets.

The parakeets are a challenging subject to photograph. They are quite small at about 6 inches tall. They are also fast and fidgety. And, they are housed in an indoor exhibit where light levels aren't the brightest.

I noticed that one of the side walls is painted in a color that nearly matches that of some of the parakeets. So, I focused my lens on a ledge and waited for a parakeet of the right color to land. Sometimes, the ledge was busy with several parakeets at once. Other times, the parakeet was facing away from the lens. After waiting for a while, a parakeet of a matching color assumed the pose that I was looking for.

ParakeetParakeet at the Brookfield Zoo in Brookfield, Illinois on September 9, 2015 Sometimes, the real subject of the photograph is the color!