Strike a pose

[Basil Dardagan]

I had a wonderful experiance with this leopard in the middle of the Kgalagadi. I first spotted her in the riverbed and then she walked straight to my car and spent a few minutes posing and investigating the car. I thought i was hallucinating during the sighting. Then after driving off it all made sense. I saw 2 sets of leopard spoor in the road.... they had been walking towards my oncoming vehicle. There was clearly a bigger and smaller set of spoor. This must have been a large cub (which i dident realize during the sighting) that was still inquisitive enough to want to investigate the car and i would imagine mom allowed her to do so as she is clearly close to leaving age. It was a truly exhilarating experiance

Canon 1DX2
24-70mm
F6.3
1/2000
Iso 1600

[Andreas Liedmann]

Oh well Basil ... I am a little bit envious looking at your used kit to photograph a beautiful looking leopard lady .

Nice and unusual shooting angle , but I do rather really like the different view !!!
All does work for me , well processed with lovely fine details rendered and sharpening spot on for me .
colors looking good for the shady location , albeit I would tone down the blue color a bit .

nice one and tfs Andreas

[Jonathan Ashton]

I like the colours and tones, I like the image but I am not too keen on the shooting angle, having said that I appreciate it was probably a case of this or nothing, and this was the best angle you could obtain.

[Gabriela Plesea]

A beauty of a leopard and I am jealous of your sighting! Even though I did have a very similar experience some years back North of Polentswa And I can certainly relate to the way you felt Basil, we've always known leopards as being elusive and we search for them everywhere, when lucky we may spot them among the foliage of a tree in the distance. All of a sudden here we are, in the middle of the road, suddenly leopard comes up to the vehicle, sniffling, looking straight to the lens, lies down and rolls in the sand, as relaxed as a domestic cat. At Mata Mata I once had a subadult leopard crawl under the vehicle for some shade - Miera's offspring Oh I miss the place so much, hope to visit again next year.
So glad you shared this image, BTW I quite like the POV and the look she gave you, love those beautiful eyes and pink nose. As well as the spoor in the sand. Colours and tonality spot-on and composition works well for me, sharpness is there in good measure - wonderful work, my friend

Warmest regards,

[Steve Kaluski]

Hi Basil, what a great looking Leopard and cool encounter, always great to have a subject like this so relaxed. Agree that the shooting angle is less than ideal, however always worth a punt as you never quite know until you get back home what you may have.

Detail and techs are great, but overall the light looks all a bit too 'even' and so the separation lacks a bit for me. If you add a midtown Curve to add some contrast, up the yellow selectively in Saturation, then globally address the soil via saturation & luminance in HSL panel you start to get more separation, as I feel, (but correct me if I'm wrong), but the soil tends to be more 'pinky'. I would loose some off the top ie 16x9, however always be mindful of giving space to your subjects.

TFS
Steve

[Mike Poole]

I love this shot due to the different perspective. Normally we strive to get lower, but here with the patterns in the and the shot works well for me - just makes her look like a playful overgrown domestic cat!

Mike

[Basil Dardagan]

Thank you everybody. Your professional comments are much appreciated