What do you think happened? The first afternoon, upon my arrival - it started bucketing with rain. Rain which didn't stop for about 3 days, intermittently. And we saw no leopards! We had a couple of amazing sightings otherwise...but on my last afternoon as I was bound to leave and rejoin my family that night, we got word of a sighting of the Keshane Male, a magnificent and powerful male leopard that roams in the area. We had to fall into the queue of the paying guests, though, but eventually it was our turn. The entire sighting was spent watching his bum as he moved up the roadways in the bush, marking his territory. Eventually he settled in the grass, and for a fleeting moment (it was literally 10-15 seconds) I could snap some portraits. After this he got up and moved off into a drainage line and we had to leave so I could drive home.
Anyway - this is one of the better photos I took in that brief spurt of eye contact. He has amazing eyes, but the shots where he's looking my way were all marred by blades of grass obscuring one of his eyes. This one has the eye clear, still with some pesky grass in the way. My personal processing ethic is geared more towards natural-looking photos and zero cloning out of parts of the image. One way I do deal with the grass, is through monochrome conversions - converting in such a way as to negate the effect of the grass by way of filtering out some colours.
Here are 2 versions of this photo. Colour, and monochrome. Which do you prefer? And why?
Drop me a comment and let me know!
Techs:
Nikon D3s
Nikkor 500mm f4 VR-II
f4.0 | 1/200 SS | ISO-2200
Shot handheld from a game viewer
 |
| click on the photo to display at proper resolution and sharpness |
 |
| click on the photo to display at proper resolution and sharpness |
Have a great day!
Morkel Erasmus
