During some of my most desperate parenting moments, the Maryland Zoo in Baltimore has been a lifesaver. For my family, and a number of others with small children, a membership to the zoo is a constant opportunity for outdoor activity, ecological education, and entertainment—not in the house, and at a pace that is manageable, even during a global pandemic. Even on the hottest summer day, the zoo offers shady walking paths, fascinating animals to observe, and opportunities for kids to ask questions about the natural world (where do lions poop?) and it’s a great spot to meet up with friends who want to walk and look and chat.
Photographer Justin Tsucalas recently visited the Baltimore zoo with his two elementary-aged children, and while strolling and #okparenting (one of his photo hashtags), he trained his lens on the animals and infrastructure, creating the following photo essay. Tsucalas’s work is punctuated with razor-sharp compositions, a curious sensitivity, and a plucky sense of humor, both romantic and critical. Whether he is photographing artists in their studios for BmoreArt, people and scenes from his native city from chefs to dog walkers to crabbers on the Chesapeake, he captures the complexity of a moment so that viewers see the scene through his eyes.
Tsucalas is the owner of Plaid Photo, a Baltimore-based studio and his clients include Wired, House Beautiful, National Geographic Traveler, Food Network, Frank’s Redhot, Surface Magazine, Neon, McCormick’s & Co., Baltimore Magazine, BmoreArt Magazine, MICA, Visit Baltimore, Four Seasons, Consumer Reports, French’s, MIT, Penn Gazette, and Hopkins Medical Magazine, among others. In his spare time, he keeps busy with personal projects photographing scenes from his everyday life under the hashtag #okparenting as well as developing personal portfolio books. At BmoreArt, we love the Art AND series he photographs on the regular.
