Fun Day at the Lazy 5 Ranch

Yes, yes, I know–that title image is in color, when I just recently wrote that I was going to shoot in black and white exclu­sively for more than a month. The pur­pose of plac­ing such a cre­ative lim­i­ta­tion on your­self is to force you out of a com­fort zone, force you to look at things dif­fer­ently, force you to think out­side the box a bit. And that’s all well and good. But just look at that dis­play! My point in includ­ing this image instead of hold­ing on to it to share in July, is to point out that if the pur­pose of a self-imposed rule is to fos­ter cre­ativ­ity and get you out there shoot­ing, then a prod­uct of that effort is worth shar­ing, even if it breaks the rules a lit­tle bit. And, the rest of the pho­tos in this post ARE black and white, so I’m mostly fol­low­ing my own advice.

I encoun­tered the pea­cock, the zebra above, and a whole host of other exotic ani­mals at the Lazy 5 Ranch in Mooresville, North Car­olina (it’s pretty close to Char­lotte, and yes, we did make a side trip to IKEA!) About a year ago, I made a recon trip to this place on my way to visit some friends in the moun­tain. I wanted to see if it was as cool as it sounded, and see if it was some­thing that Isaac might enjoy.

For those of you who don’t fol­low the link, what the Lazy 5 Ranch is, as you can see from these pho­tos, is an open range of woods, grass­land, and hills, where all man­ner of exotic ani­mals from around the world are free to roam. And when I say free to roam, I mean free–as in, you will often find your path blocked by one or sev­eral ani­mals you never expected to have block­ing your path.

The ranch is great for pho­tog­ra­phy, as you have the oppor­tu­nity to get up close and per­sonal with ani­mals you might oth­er­wise never come into con­tact with. Unlike a zoo, there are no mesh fences, smudged glass, or legions of peo­ple in between you and the wildlife. You don’t need exotic tele­pho­tos, and in fact, the biggest prob­lem you often have is hav­ing a lens that is wide enough, and find­ing angles to pho­to­graph the ani­mals where your car isn’t in the shot (of course, you can use those shots too, to bet­ter illus­trate your experience).

The real appeal of the ranch is, of course, the wildly dif­fer­ent per­spec­tive and inter­ac­tion. While I am very grate­ful for our pro­gres­sive and well-designed zoo in Ashe­boro, this is an expe­ri­ence that is more vis­cer­ally excit­ing and enter­tain­ing. Isaac loved it, except when some of the crit­ters got a lit­tle close for comfort.

When­ever I expe­ri­ence things like this, there is always the ten­sion of enjoy­ing the expe­ri­ence of see­ing exotic ani­mals and won­der­ing if it is right, or humane, or what­ever, to be see­ing these ani­mals out of their nat­ural envi­ron­ment. Like the zoo, or the cir­cus, or the kind of dodgy “zoo” down near the coast, you always won­der if the ani­mals are well-cared for, fed prop­erly, happy. It is kind of voyeuristic.

All of the ani­mals at Lazy 5 seem to be very well treated, and they have con­sid­er­ably more space to roam than the aver­age ani­mal in the zoo. One could argue, I sup­pose, that ani­mals in the zoo retain more of their “wild­ness” because they have less direct expo­sure with humans, but I doubt it.

What I do believe is that these inter­ac­tions with ani­mals, famil­iar and exotic, remind of us of won­der of this world we live in, and the impor­tance of the vast diver­sity of species. I want Isaac to have fun on trips like these, but I also want to fos­ter in him an appre­ci­a­tion for all the wild things in the world–the beauty, the strange­ness, the strength of nature. On a basic level, it is of course just an amaz­ing thrill to be so close to the animals.

If you choose to go visit this remark­able place, keep in mind that it is cash-only. Also, if the weather looks like it’s going to be nice, I highly rec­om­mend that you reserve spots on a horse-drawn wagon. Open air and dri­ven by Lazy 5 Ranch work­ers, you have the ben­e­fit of a guided tour that can veer off the beaten path for a closer look and a les­son about the ani­mals. Because the wagon is open, you have a great van­tage point for pho­tographs, and there is ample oppor­tu­nity to get your fill. Both times I have been we elected to stay in the car, but next time we’ll opt for the wagon.

I hope you enjoy the pho­tographs and our expe­ri­ence that I have tried to bring to you through them. And I’m sorry for cheat­ing and throw­ing a color pho­to­graph in here, but I’m sure you under­stand why.