I photograph animals at the Brookfield Zoo quite often. Most people think that photographing animals in captivity must be easy. After all, the exhibits are small enough that the animals are practically forced into a position that is right in front of the camera. While it's obviously much easier than capturing images of animals in the wild, zoo photography still requires a lot of patience.

While taking photographs at the zoo, my approach is to watch an animal's behavior for a while--sometimes up to 30 or 40 minutes. If an animal is sleeping, I usually visit another exhibit and return later. If an animal is exhibiting an interesting behavior, it will usually cycle through those behaviors repeatedly. This makes it more likely to capture an action at a peak moment.

For example, I noticed how this Alaskan brown bear would dive into the small pool of water, then swim to the other side, get out of the water, walk around the perimeter of the large exhibit, and then dive back into the pool of water--starting the cycle all over again. During the first cycle, I was observing and didn't capture any pictures. I was more prepared for the second round, but missed on the timing of these challenging shots. The third time was a charm:

Swimming grizzlyGrizzly bear (Ursus arctos) swimming at the Brookfield Zoo in Brookfield, Illinois on September 27, 2011

There was no fourth time. But, if I had stayed for another 45 minutes, I bet that the bear would have repeated the cycle again!