The Prize

For me this picture is special. A lot of people see our pictures on our website and various social media platforms and if it’s pleasing to them, then they acknowledge it’s a good shot. However, people forget that we are not professional photographers, we are professional guides who happen to have cameras with us on our adventures. What is not seen in this picture is the hard work put in by experienced guides and trackers who worked together as a team tirelessly for 2,5 hours to find an animal who doesn't want to be found. This coupled with the fact that she had a young cub makes this an extremely dangerous situation.

To the picture itself, as gory as it is, a ribcage creates a great composition if the subject is on the far side - almost a tunnel effect drawing in the viewer’s eye. The leopard was positioned deep in a Tamboti thicket so a tight close-up was the only option. I particularly love how the ribs on the left-hand side point towards the eye of the leopard. The snarl and the glint in the eye round off the image.

Equipment used

Camera - Nikon D800

Lens and Focal Length - Nikkor 200mm-400mm f/4 @400mm

Settings used to capture this image

ISO 2000 – It was an overcast day and ISO of 2000 doesn't exhibit too much grain on the D800.

Aperture f/4 – It’s all about the defocused background and a shallow depth of field which works well with a tight shot.

Shutter 1/320 sec – I used a fast shutter to capture the ferocity at which she was feeding.

Editing used on this image

Editing and post processing is always a personal preference and will not always appeal to everybody but the key, in my opinion, is to do things that don't dramatically alter what you saw when the image was captured. With this image I did some basic editing. I pushed up the contrast in order to bring out the natural colours, i.e. the red, orange and black. These colours are a great combination and actually are colours associated with power. This coupled with enhancing the clarity and post vignetting help focus the viewer’s eye on the subject and its prey. Given the fact that the ISO was quite high, I used a little Noise Reduction to soften the clarity in the background giving a slightly defocused background.

Photography is a process, what are the correct settings depending on the situation, what effect do you want and how can editing enhance what the eye already sees. Wildlife photography includes all this but all of this cannot exist without finding the subject - an art and a craft enabling our guests to share in our euphoria of discovery.