Legadima The Leopard Makes The Cover by Grant Atkinson

The image of Legadima the leopard is one from a sequence I took a little while ago. This frame was recently selected for the front cover of travel company Bench Internationals 2012 Africa brochure – www.benchinternational.com.au
One thing about viewing and watching wildlife is that you really just never know what is going to happen out there and the day that I took this shot was one of those occasions.
The well-known female leopard had two young cubs with her at the time, and was busy feeding on an impala kill that she had dragged under a bush. I parked my vehicle alongside a tree that I had seen the cubs playing in, the day before. When we unexpectedly heard lions roar very nearby the adult female leopard climbed the very tree I was parked alongside to look out for the danger. For reasons unknown she then turned right around and decided to come down a very small branch toward us, and in the process gave us a bit of a warning snarl before relaxing and slipping quietly by the side of the vehicle without giving us another look.

In processing this image I had to carefully lighten some shadows on the darker side of the leopards face and apply selective sharpening.
It just goes to show that content is usually more important than shot settings when it comes to wildlife photography, as long as your settings are more or less acceptable.
Great image!
You make a good point about the settings, sometimes you don’t have time to make the necessary adjustments without missing the opportunity of capturing the action….sometimes it works out sometimes it doesn’t, but worth the gamble! This is one certainly that paid off!
Thanks Susie, I got lucky on this occasion. I try to always remind myself to err on the side of shooting too fast a shutter speed rather than too slow, usually with wildlife things can happen very suddenly…
Well done Grant and thanks for the extra technical information. I’m a newbie and I’m still paving my road.
Congratulations Grant.
A superb capture.
God Bless.