Leopard in the grass

[Ken Watkins]

Taken in Kwando concession, Northern Botswana 12th March 2008

EOS 1D MkIII
500mm hand-held
F5, 1/320, ISO 500

[Wally Nussbaumer]

To be able to get a shot of a Leopard in the wild is a challenge, to be able to get a good one is eve more of a challenge. Good colors, nice detail, but unfortunate he/she wasn't a bit more cooperative looking towards the camera for their eyes are penetrating.

[Roman Kurywczak]

Hi Ken,
I don't mind the look back because both eyes are visible. Would like a bit of room left and especially bottom for the rest of the virtual body. Don't remember if you are against doing such things .........but blurring/removing a few strategic grasses would also help improve even further (horizontal one top left and yellowish/brown one near nose). Exposure is right on.

[Ken Watkins]

I posted this because it was not a direct stare, I thought it made a change. If you like a good stare here is another one taken a year earlier in the same area, this time a young male.

[Dave Hutchinson]

Loved the leopard. I have had lots of luck photographing cheetahs in Kenya, but so far all of the leopards that we have sighted on safari have been sleeping!:confused: -Dave-

www.CrazyAboutTravel.com (http://www.CrazyAboutTravel.com)

[Cheryl Ertelt]

I really like the initial image and like the fact it is staring in another direction. A bit more space on the left would have been even better.

[Peter Buntman]

Hi Ken, I’m sure by now you know I photograph leopards 99% of the time and this is a super looking lady great eye’s and loves the natural surroundings. I have over 27000 leopard shots and love this one. Very well done for hand held. <?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" /><o:p></o:p>
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[Robert Amoruso]

Ken,

The alertness of the animal makes the distant stare work IMO. With birds, when they look away, if the photographer does not show something in the image that would cause them to look that way, the image rarely works. But with mammals, you get expressions like this and obviously, the animal's attention is drawn to something. Nice work.

[Sabyasachi Patra]

In the first Image, I would like more space in the left and little bit more at the bottom. Like the colours and the gaze.

In the second image, a slightly lower angle would have been better. I don't like the burnt out back.

Overall, nice images.