The zoo’s public relations department marvels at the “panda feeding scene” that was filmed in one day

“Feeding scenes are rare and hard to capture. You have it! There are people who come to take pictures, but leave without getting the picture they wanted.

This is what Ms. Minatsu Matsumoto, from the Public Relations Section of Adventure World, a theme park in Shirahama Town, Wakayama Prefecture, told me during our photo shoot.

I visited the park in May this year to cover the project “Adventure World’s first ever panda birth by Japanese staff alone. On that day, I was able to capture on camera scenes of the giant panda, Fu-hama, who was born on November 22 last year, nursing, playing with her parents, chewing bamboo in imitation of her mother, Lau-hama, and her father, Eimei, eating boldly and walking bravely.

However, I later learned that filming the feeding scene itself was not an easy task at the time. Honami Hasegawa, who works in the same Public Relations Section as Ms. Matsumoto, told us, “At that time, we had to do it ourselves.

“We didn’t come across many breastfeeding scenes during this period. During the first six months of the baby’s life when we filmed her, the feeding time was unstable, sometimes during the day, sometimes at night. Now they spend the night separately from their parents and meet in the morning to nurse, so as long as the public relations staff and journalists are able to film before the park opens, I think they will be able to capture the feeding scenes.

The park uses social networking services to broadcast the daily lives of its animals, and the daily posts featuring Kaehama in particular are very popular.

Several members of the public relations department are in charge of photographing the animals on a daily basis, using professional equipment. The photos are taken for 30 minutes to several hours, and are carefully selected from among hundreds of photos. They also take pictures for news reports, program materials, and posters. The creativity of these photos and videos is as good as that of a professional.

The photo of the announcement of Kaehama’s name that was released to the public became the talk of the town: “How cute! The photo of the announcement of Kaehama’s name that was released to the public became a hot topic of conversation. Mr. Hasegawa, who took the photo, has a few tips on how to photograph pandas.

“When they are small, their ears are white and their eyes are furry. When the pandas are small, their ears become white circles, so I aim for an angle where I can see their ears. For adult pandas, gather all the leaves together and start the shutter at the point where the panda is holding the leaf in its hand, which creates a cute picture of the panda holding its hand next to its face. When photographing animals, a high-powered zoom is useful because you may miss your chance to take a photo while changing lenses.

The daily lives of the animals photographed by the zoo staff and distributed through social networking services make us feel closer to them and more familiar with them, even though we are unable to visit the zoo due to the Corona disaster.

Two months from now, in November, Kaehama will turn one year old. Kaehama, a baby panda who is still a spoiled brat, and Ryohama, a mother panda who is full of affection. You can’t take your eyes off the two pandas as they play together.

Adventure World official SNS site

Website: https://www.aws-s.com/ツイッター:

https://twitter.com/aws_officialフェイスブック: https://www.facebook.com/adventureworld.official/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/adventureworld_official/ Tik Tok: https://www.tiktok.com/@adventureworldofficial

Phew!

Good job!

Hami Hami

“See you later!