Defiant Leopard

[Grant Atkinson]

Canon 1Dmk4, Canon 300 f2.8IS, handheld. 1/3200s at f5.0, iso 250. Cropped, and processed in ACR 6 and CS5. Image taken at Chitabe camp in the Okavango Delta, Botswana on a recent photosafari. This young leopard was trapped in a tree by a pack of African wild dogs for a while. I took this shot as she was snarling her defiance toward the dogs below. The image was taken in the later part of the morning, and light was quite bright. I shot fast shutter speeds as there was no way to predict when things might happen quickly and I wanted to have enough shutter speed to capture any action.
Cheers
Grant

[Rachel Hollander]

Wow, Grant! That's some snarl and teeth. Glad to hear she was snarling at wild dogs and not you . Excellent detail, sharpness and IQ and the blue bg is very pleasing. There's a very small patch of blue coming through by the legs that you might consider getting rid of either by clone or crop. Only other thing I wish for is a tad more room on the lhs so the whiskers aren't right up against the edge. Congrats on an outstanding image and somthing not seen every day.

TFS,
Rachel

[Grant Atkinson]

Hi Rachel, thanks for the comments. I do have more space all around and will have a look at adding a little space around the whiskers. Good eye for spotting the blue patch...
I will see what comments come along and perhaps do a repost tomorrow
cheers
Grant

[Pieter de Waal]

Fantastic image Grant. Not often one is able to capture this kind of action from that perspective, great. Nice detail and exposure and just love those long whiskers.

[Steve Kaluski]

Hi Grant, well you kept this one quite, an absolutely cracking image and the BKG colour just adds so much separation to the subject. The snarl, mouth slightly open, cheeks drawn back conveys instantly what is going on, one I personally wouldn't mind having in my files.

I agree with Rachel about some extra room to the left and perhaps above, very easy to do. If you did, then a slight move of the whole crop a tad to the left would work nicely, I think you know what I mean. My only additional thought would be to slightly drop the exposure over the chest area, toned down I guess, as it looks a little bright, but am viewing on laptop so... Once again, a simple fix if you think this might help.

Still a very dramatic and impressive image as presented, counting the days.

TFS
Steve

[Mark Wiseman]

What a wonderful image Grant. I agree with what Steve and Rachel have said above. A beautiful pose with wonderful seperation, great IQ, TFS.

[Morkel Erasmus]

Cracking image indeed Grant, and glad you found time to share it with us!!
The snarl, IQ and pose are fantastic. I agree with Rachel on getting rid of the piece of blue between the legs, and with Steve on toning down slightly.

Here is a quick repost with the overall highlights selected, multiplied and opacity set to 20%. I also added some selective saturation (15pts) to the leopard.
WDYT?

[Hilary Hann]

I have reservations about loosening the crop, the strength of this shot is in its proximity which is accentuated by the size of the leopard in the frame. I wonder if sometimes we don't get hung up on making the images all fit some preconceived perception we have, which then loses some of the story telling we are trying to do. So just my opinion of course, and I am certainly not in the upper ranks of the wildlife photographers who post here, but visually I would be sad if wild portraits all conformed to our 'rules'. You haven't clipped the whiskers, for me that is enough, and I have no idea why removing that little bit of blue sky between the front legs would improve the image.

I do like Morkel's repost with toning the highlights. Hope I'm not too out of step with the consensus.

[Brendan Dozier]

Awesome dramatic action capture, Grant! What an intense snarling pose and great look at those teeth. Vibrant blue sky BG complements yellow / orange of fur nicely.
Would love to see the wide scene of the wild dogs trapping it in the tree if you have it. Nice work!

[Grant Atkinson]

Thanks Pieter, Steve, Mark, Morkel, Hilary and Brendan, for taking the time to look, think and comment, and repost in your case Morkel. I have cropped this image from all 4 sides, so I have plenty of space in any direction. Hilary, I purposefully cropped right to the edge of the whiskers in order to really bring the cat close, and thus try and emphasize the aggression. A slightly wider crop I can easily do although it does make the image feel just a tiny bit 'calmer' to me. Morkel, thansk for reposting, the toned-down highlights are a plus in your repost and I will try and adopt that approach on a rework of the original. As for the colour in the image, I also like the addition of some saturation to the leopard. As for the blue sky, that feels a tiny bit too blue to me personally, but it seems to please most viewers.... Part of the fun of posting on forums like this one is trying to create an image that will please everybody It was fairly close to that colour in reality, as I was shooting up at a fairly steep angle, but for a print version of this image, I would desaturate it slightly to better resemble reality.
Brendan, I do have some images of the dogs of the ground-bound dogs and the leopard in the tree...I was able to shoot at a variety of focal lengths during the sighting.
Thanks again for the comments..

[Harshad Barve]

I liked the it as posted Grant , top notch compo , details and BG to die for
TFS

[Robert Amoruso]

I love this Grant. And I love the blue sky as is. All the reasons why this works so well covered in detail above.

[Dumay de Boulle]

Great pose and iQ..I like the blue sky...Colors in the OP look quite cool. I would try warm up the Leopard a bit. I would also like to see a bit more eye but the expression on the face is enough to hold the viewers attention.

[Grant Atkinson]

Here is the repost with a bit more space around the whiskers and above..
thanks Harshad, Robert and Dumay. Dumay, I would have loved to have gotten more of the eye showing here but the sun was already up and the cat was looking down....
thanks for commenting
cheers
Grant

[Stu Bowie]

Hi Grant, I quite like this angle, and of course, the aggression does take this to another level. Its always hard to judge colours of a scene when one wasnt there, so will have to go with yoyr repost. Great pp work BTW, especially on the whiskers.

[Grant Atkinson]

thanks Stuart, and the good results on the whiskers come courtesy of the 1Dmk4 and the 300f2.8IS.....rather than anything too special done by myself
cheers
grant

[Tin Man Lee]

I love the tight crop and agree the added space on the left really improved the image. Stunning moment captured. I dream to have a shot like that. I can feel the tension. Nice work!

[Marina Scarr]

Final repost works even better on this already kick butt picture.