A lot of photographers think that if they buy a better camera they’ll be able to take better photographs. A better camera won’t do a thing for you if you don’t have anything in your head or in your heart. - Arnold Newman

It’s true that gear can make a pretty big difference to the quality of the images you take, especially with regards to sharpness, detail, resolution and digital noise, but gear does not have a mind with which to create. To some people creative thought comes quite naturally, while others may have to work on their creative processes a fair amount to achieve a similar result. The good news is the more time you spend out there creating images, the easier and more naturally the concepts of photography will become to you, so forget about what gear you have and just get out there into the field. The images I have chosen for this week’s blog all required a bit of creative thought when composing and editing the final frames, with some needing a bit more thought than others, but in the end I was very happy with the results. I hope you enjoy this week’s selection of wildlife in monochrome.

When I saw this Charleston male walking across an open area, I knew I wanted to get far enough ahead of him in order to capture a portrait of him coming towards me with the clean background.

The situation here was quite difficult and the visibility was limited due to the area in which this cheetah made his kill. I had time to think about what I wanted, but had to wait a while before the cheetah would make his way closer to the carcass to feed. They have a nervous nature and so once there I didn’t have to wait long for this shot to materialize.

I loved this image and the way this youngster lay on its mother, but I needed to crop in quite drastically to get the framing I wanted. It turned out much more powerful this way.

A herd of kudus came to this waterhole to drink and they often climb onto the dam wall when doing so, so I positioned our vehicle to make the best of the background separation and low angle the wall provides.

This image was part luck, part timing and part skill. I have never had an opportunity like this one before and it was hard to spend time thinking about the photographs I wanted to take, mostly because the sighting itself was just incredible! When the cub came down into this tree fork, I had a good idea of how I wanted to frame it, but when she looked up it was just perfect.

Night time photography can be very difficult for some people to grasp, but personally it is one of my favorite kinds. At every opportunity I try capture shots like this by making use of the spotlight from a separate vehicle and it creates a beautiful effect.

I had very limited time with this female leopard and so I had to be very quick with my shooting, thus not much thought went into the making of the image and a lot of the creativity happened after the fact during the editing process. My main concern when capturing the image were just getting them sharp and making sure that I left enough space for the animal to look into.

This was a beautiful moment and luckily it all came together. This cub woke up from a nap and I anticipated her moving over to mom to rub faces, but what I was really waiting for was the perfect tail flick. Fortunately, it all came together for me.

The natural world can be very harsh and unfortunately some must die so that others may live and this is what I wanted to bring across in this image.

I like to refer to vultures as the clean-up crew and in this instance we had a carcass unattended by any major predators so the vultures moved in on it in the meantime. I spent most of the time here trying to get as many images of them in flight or coming in to land, but when this one perched itself on the carcass, I seized the opportunity to capture the moment.