As we welcome in the new year here's my first blog post of 2018. Back in December my family and I went to take a look at the Wild Lights exhibition in Dublin Zoo. The zoo is currently closed for upgrades so they took advantage of the downtime to run a unique exhibition.
The Wild lights exhibition runs from November 2017 up to the 7th of January 2018. Unfortunately the event is completely sold out so you won't be able to check it out at this stage but you can get a flavor of the event by taking a look at some of the photos.
The wild lights is a trail of Chinese lanterns and light sculptures which winds it's way across the first half of the zoo (excluding the African Plains section). Upon entering the zoo visitors are greeted by a beautiful display of aquatic creatures and slowly breathing water lilies.
Water lillies on the lake.
Visitors then follow a trail of Chinese lanterns, butterflies and flowers which leads on to the many animal themed sculptures.
Butterflies and floral sculptures along the path.
Hidden among the branches and trees you can see the beautiful animal themed light sculptures.
Stork light Sculpture
Some of the sculptures are based on animals you might find in Dublin Zoo like these Orangutans.
Orangutan Light sculptures
Giraffe light Sculpture
There are also plenty of animals that you wouldn't find in the zoo like these fearsome dinos
Light up Dinosaurs
The sculptures are made up of silk stretched over a plastic frame and lit up with strips of LED lighting. The sculptures were designed and supplied by Canadian company DDM which specializes in creating light displays like the Wild lights event. The sculptures themselves were actually created in China by it's Chinese partner company VYA
Chinese circus performers
At the halfway point visitors can enjoy a Chinese themed circus show featuring acrobats and this guy above who did a demonstration of Chinese face mask changing which was really great!! After the show the trail snakes it's way back towards the entrance. There are numerous animal scuptures including these:
Flamingo light sculptures
Peacock light sculptures
Toward the end of the display come the real highlights. The first of which is a temple inspired tunnel with ornate glowing pillars and a roof made up of hundreds of Chinese lanterns.
On the far side of the tunnel is a specatacular 30 meter long Chinese dragon
Chinese dragon light Sculpture
The dragon's head
There was a small Chinese craft fair before the last couple of sculptures. Annie checked out the ocarinas!
Chinese craft fair
The final highlights of the night was surely the 16-metre high porcelain elephant tower. Which can be seen from outside the zoo.
Porcelain elephant tower light sculpture
All the images were taken using my brand new sigma 16mm 1.4 lens on my Sony A6000. It's an amazing lens I sense it's handiwork work may be appearing in many blog posts to come. It may even get it it's own post!
Happy New Year everyone.