The leopard photo that was 7 years in the making

Leopards and I have a funny relationship.
I've had to exert quite some patience to obtain photos of them - like on THIS occasion in the Kruger National Park.

But this post is not about a Kruger leopard.

Ever since visiting the Kalahari for the first time in 14 years back in 2009, I had a strong desire to see and photograph the elusive leopards living in this harsh environment.

For some people, these leopard sightings in the Kgalagadi Transfrontier Park come like flies to dung...you see them posting trip reports on forums or sightings photos on social media and it's just leopards left, right and centre...but not for me.

It took me 8 trips in 6 years to even SEE my first leopard. And that was a very fleeting sighting of a male leopard drinking from the camp waterhole at Urikaruus under the floodlight in December 2014. We narrowly missed a good sighting of a mother and cub the following day (arriving at that specific waterhole literally 5 minutes too late).

So you can imagine that it became quite the photographic obsession for me.

On our recent safari to the Kalahari, the "streak" was firmly broken as we had 4 good leopard sightings. The photos were not spectacular, but being able to at least spend time with the felines that had eluded me successfully over 9 separate trips to this place (in 7 years), was very satisfying and fulfilling in the end.

This was the first one - the one that broke the drought for me.
I had seen that a leopard sighting was pinned on the sightings board at Twee Rivieren rest camp, quite some distance up the Auob river. We decided to go scan that area for our afternoon drive. Seeing as the temperature was upwards of 50 degrees Celcius, leaving early on an afternoon drive to take advantage of the vehicle air-conditioning needed no motivation within my family...

Don't believe me on the temperature?
Check this out (note the time on the clock!):

Getting back to the story...

We drove up towards the Montrose waterhole where the leopard had been spotted in the morning. We hadn't spoken to anyone who'd physically seen it so we just looked into every nook and cranny of the calcrete ridge on the left and in the trees and riverbed on the right.

Suddenly, as we drove into a small loop road there she was! She scuttled out of a small shrub (where I would have never thought to look as it was so dense and thorny) as my vehicle came around the shrub.

Nikon D4s  |  Nikkor 400mm f2.8G VR  |  f4.5  |  1/1250 SS  |  ISO-640

I was able to create a few frames as she lay down in the shade of the tree, before crossing the road and climbing up to the calcrete ridges.

Once she lay down among the calcrete, the camouflage was amazing. If you are ambling along on a game drive, even at a low speed of say 20km/h, would you spot her here??

Even when she started walking along against the backdrop of this rocky ridge - she was pretty well camouflaged! How many people have driven right past leopards on these ridges so distinct to the Kalahari? Many, and I'm sure I have on my past trips as well. Even while we were sitting watching the leopard (with only her head visible), another vehicle came past us, gave a quick look, and drove off before we could tell them that there was a leopard!

What's the take-home message for all you avid nature photographers?

Everyone's got that one elusive shot or species that haunts you - your Achilles' heel.
The only way to get the monkey off your back - is to go back time and time again to the place where you have the highest probability of getting the sighting and/or the shot, and have patience to sit it out when you're there, and the fortitude of mind to resolve yourself to the next time if it doesn't work out at that particular time. Don't give up!!

This leopard photo was 7 years in the making!

Until next time...

Morkel Erasmus

All in the eyes

The eyes have it, they say.
A picture is worth a thousand words, they say.
Whoever they are, they said it.

On our recent short visit to Singita in the Sabi Sand Game Reserve in South Africa, we were fortunate to spend some quality time with an old male leopard called the "Camp Pan Male". He is estimated to be around 16 years old, which is very old for a male leopard (especially considering the amount of other males he's had to run into over the years).

Have a look at this photo.
What does it "speak" to you??
Think about it for a few seconds before reading on.

Nikon D3s  |  Nikkor 500mm f4 VR-II  |  f5.0  |  1/500 SS  |  ISO-1100

There's a very compelling story to this image - it was taken at the end of a very emotional sighting of him trying his best to feed on a kill he'd stolen from another leopard. His legs were wobbly, his hips looked cripple, and his teeth were worn down. He couldn't get into the very small tree that the kill was hoisted in. I will make the entire story the subject of a different post, because there's some good video footage that my wife caught of the event that would give you an idea of what went down.

Anyway, here he was lying in the grass after exerting all his energy to grab a bite or two...and as he longingly looked up at the kill he was unable to wrest free from the branch it was snuggled into, he looked forlorn...defeated. I was looking into the eyes of a dying leopard. He knew it. I knew it. 

As of today he is still alive (it's merely a week after we were there), but his condition was pretty poor, and we were probably some of the last people to see this leopard alive...and that makes this image special to me.

Morkel Erasmus

Madikwe: May 2010 (Part 2)

If you missed out on the previous episode of this trip report, click HERE.


Day 2

We headed straight for the sighting of African Wild Dogs that was called in on the radio. When we found them they had moved from the side of the road and were staring intently at something deeper in the bushes - would we see them hunt?

They soon lost interest in whatever was back there, and proceeded to move about and socialise with each other. The surrounding bush was quite dense so the images aren't that great - but this was my first proper Painted Dog sighting in years (I don't have much luck with them in the Kruger National Park) and I thoroughly enjoyed spending a good deal of time with them in close proximity, watching the pack interact with each other.

When the dogs decided to lie down, we took our cue to return to the lodge, have a hearty brunch, and relax around the pool watching the wildlife come and go to the small waterhole in front of the lodge. We also met up with Grant Marcus and Gavin Tonkinson, two of the local Madikwe guides involved at the time with Tuningi Safari Lodge. They were keen to join us on our afternoon drive as they didn't have guests to attend to at the time.

Later that afternoon we decided to head to a range of kopjes for a sunset shoot - obviously looking for some wildlife sightings on the way. All these great plans were interrupted when this little lady shot across the road right in front of us!!

Back then, Madikwe wasn't really known for quality leopard sightings. The cats that were there were known to be skittish around vehicles. That's all changed now and the reserve produces some great leopard sightings consistently now. We decided to stick with this young leopardess and see what she does. She ended up providing us with a real quality sighting. Initially, after she scoped us out properly from behind a bush, she sauntered back across the road, and after earning her trust we gently followed her trail off the main road.

She was skulking through the long grass, peering ahead. Was she on the hunt?

She stopped at a nearby tree - not your typical tree preferred by leopards (this one was densely covered in branches and looked like a tough one to get high up in) - peered up, and before we even realised it she jumped into the tree and climbed to the top, where it seemed she had a kill stashed. She was just about to tuck in, when a lone male Impala strolled by. She immediately went into hunting mode - tail swishing to and fro, waiting for the impala to walk past right under her position...

There was silence in our vehicle as we held our breath - would we see her jump down on this ignorant antelope right in front of us???

The wind shifted, and just before her quarry was close enough for a pounce, he caught wind of her and bolted in the other direction. She relented and carried on feeding on her existing prey. What a close call! The sun had now set (there goes our sunset shoot on the kopje, but we didn't mind) and we used a spotlight to grab one or two images of her feeding, then left the sighting as other lodge vehicles started to arrive.

Driving leisurely back to the lodge with the spotlight at the ready, we came across some "African Unicorns" as well (you can figure that one out by yourself), and stopped to photograph some of the iconic dead leadwood trees under the stars as well.

I still had a lot to learn about nightscape photography at this stage, but it was fun and that is what matters in the end!

We had a jolly dinner around the fire recounting the day's exciting turn of events. What would our last morning in Madikwe hold?

Morkel Erasmus

Sabi Sands: February 2010 (Part 2)

This is the second episode of my long overdue trip report for this safari I enjoyed with my wife. If you need to catch up on part 1, click HERE first.

We were up early on the 2nd day of our stay in Leopard Hills, and the anticipation was high was we headed out on our morning game drive. Our first proper sighting was a small breeding herd of African Elephants. They allowed us quite close, which resulted in some interesting photographic opportunities.

We hit the road again after getting confirmation on the radio that a male leopard called Tekwaan male had been found moving in a drainage line. Every part of Africa has its own appeal - the wide open savanna of East Africa is awesome, but there's something equally special to the dense bushveld of the South African Lowveld region.

The Tekwaan male leopard was proving quite elusive, after getting moving again the vehicles that were in the sighting lost him in the drainage line, and we had to do some searching of our own. Through some clever prediction of the heading of the leopard as he was patrolling, our friend and guide Marius Coetzee stopped the vehicle in a dry riverbed and we waited in silence as he and his tracker scanned around. Moments later, our quarry popped his head up immediately to our right, not 20 meters from our position.

We waited patiently, and Tekwaan moved down the embankment and into the riverbed.

Unfortunately for us, he proceeded to walk in front of our vehicle as we slowly followed along the sandy riverbed. Overtaking him would disturb him and we let him carry on his patrol. He stopped for a drink in a puddle in the river - which would have made for awesome photos from the front!! I had to settle for some tail shots...

He finished his drink, turned around, and strolled into the thickets. The end of a riveting sighting, albeit not the best position for us in terms of photography...

We returned to the lodge for a scrumptious brunch on the deck overlooking the magnificently green bushveld...

I hope you enjoyed this post. Stay tuned for part 3, coming soon!

Morkel Erasmus

View of a Leopard

I've minced no bones about leopards being a nemesis species for me. They are elusive to begin with, but it does seem that when I am in the area, they get a special memo to avoid being seen. This was one such an occasion - I was visiting my friend +Marlon du Toit when he was still working at Singita Sabi Sands in the hope of building up my leopard portfolio (seeing that the Sabi Sands is infamous for its leopard sighting and density).

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

PhotoShare: Regally Poised

Hi everyone. Here's another addition to my new African Visions series of wildlife in monochrome and duotone. 


A beautiful young leopard pauses and sits poised like only this graceful cat can. I think I have one of the poorest (read: least amount of photos) leopard portfolios of all the wildlife photographers I know. I just have bad luck with them! Aside from that one epic sighting in Kruger last year of the leopard scaling the tree, my other leopard sightings leave much to be desired. They avoid me in the Kalahari. They avoided me shockingly in Savute last year. And they even avoided me in the Sabi Sands earlier this year. This was taken in 2010 when leopards still liked me, LOL.

Monochrome conversions are very personal and subjective. Contrary to popular belief, merely converting to black-and-white won't "save" a photo. I often shoot with monochrome in mind - trying to look for contrasts and textures to use. Getting a monochrome conversion just right often takes me longer than processing a normal "colour" photo.

Have a great weekend, folks! I hope to meet some of you over the weekend at the Photo & Film Expo in Johannesburg, South Africa. Come and check out the Wild Eye stall (#339).

Techs:
Nikon D3s
Nikkor 200-400mm f4
f4.0 | 1/160 SS | ISO-500

www.morkelerasmus.com

This photo is Copyrighted © Morkel Erasmus Photography.

You may share this image as presented here under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 licence (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0)

More info:
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/

When it all comes together

Hello everyone.

I promised you a more lengthy blog post after my return from the Kruger National Park. Well, here it is!

I had a wonderful experience one afternoon that sure taught me a lot, and could also prove beneficial to those reading. A lot is said about patience being one of the greatest virtues of nature/wildlife photography...patience, preparation and knowledge of your subject matter. On this occasion, I had a little more patience than I normally have, and my knowledge of the subject matter enabled me to prepare for an amazing photographic experience.

We had come down from the far north of the Kruger Park, having already spent 6 nights in the Park and narrowly missing out on good leopard sightings quite a few times. Those who know these cats will know that they are very secretive and often a good leopard sighting can last only 5 minutes or so. The bush in the Kruger Park can also be quite dense in a lot of places, meaning that if the cat is not in the road or right next to it, the most you are going to see is a few spots anyway.

To give you an idea...at that stage this was our only "legit" leopard sighting to date - a youngster left alone by its mother in a dense mopani thicket while she went hunting:

Nikon D3s  |  Nikkor 500mm f4 VR-II  |  f4.0  |  1/1000 SS  |  ISO-560

Now to get back to the story...we booked into the Olifants rest camp for the night (our 7th night of a scheduled 8). This camp is located in the central region of Kruger, and our next night would be spent in Satara which is even more central and a great region for wildlife viewing with open plains, riverine forests and plenty of life around. Our neighbours on this particular evening told us of an impala kill that was tucked into a tree by the side of the main road between the camps (and that the kill was still untouched by the time they went past there that particular afternoon). We had come from the north and were thus oblivious of this development. Knowing that there was a very good chance that the leopard would return during the night to feast on its meal, and also then a very good chance that it would be there early morning, I planned to head down there at first light and hope for the best.

The next morning I did just that...it was a good 30km from Olifants camp so I only got there at about 07h00 after the gates opened at 06h00. The kill was in the tree allright...but no leopard in sight!! I had always dreamed of getting a good photo of a leopard climbing up a tree.

The tree was nicely positioned for a shot of the leopard climbing up the tree. I spent about 30minutes waiting for the leopard to show itself, when someone who was also parked at the kill told me about some male lions further south that were lying next to the road. I decided to go and find them before checking back at the tree on my way back to Olifants camp. It occurred to me that this tree was to the East, meaning that by late afternoon the golden light would hit it dead-on as I was viewing it. I salivated at the thought of the leopard coming back later in the day and scaling the tree

When I returned from the lions I found the kill exactly in the position I had left it in. I went back to the camp to fetch my wife and daughter and our stuff for the move to Satara rest camp which would be our last night in the park. Again, on the way down past the kill it was still as I left it. We headed south, booked into Satara and had a bite to eat. By this time the weather had turned from lovely to pretty murky. It was overcast and starting to drizzle. Still, this was our last 'full day' in the Park and we had to decide where we would head off to for our afternoon drive.

I was haunted by the mental image of that leopard scaling the tree and me not being there to photograph the action...so we decided to stock up on refreshments, load enough toys into the car for our little girl to not get bored quickly, and set off on the 25 odd kilometer drive towards the tree. It was 13h30, and there were no other cars parked there at that stage (also, no leopard yet!). I knew which spot I needed to park in - the only one with a perfect view of the tree at an angle that made it possible to photograph the "climb" and be able to do it regardless of whether the cat decided to ascend from the left, right or front of the tree. Obviously if it decided to scale the trunk from the back I would be screwed - but hey, you have to keep some hope stored up if you want to "bring home the bacon" in nature photography! The kill was in exactly the same position as it had been all day...a good sign? Or not? Was this shy cat even coming back today?

And so the waiting game began...

14h00 came...no leopard...
15h00 came...no leopard...
16h00 came...no leopard...

By now we had accumulated a following. There were quite a few vehicles parked out with us, and many more were coming and staying for a few minutes and then going again...but no leopard...


One of the characteristics of Kruger is the visitors/tourists sharing information with each other on sightings and the whereabouts of animals. Many who stopped at our car inquired as to what we were looking at...most thought it was something on the ground - which was humorous as the kill was quite obvious in the tree about 60m from the road.

One particular man asked me about it, I pointed it out to him, and he proceeded to tell his wife: "There's a buck in that tree, but it's already dead"

doh...to which I had to restrain myself from replying:

"If you drive a further 2 clicks south you will find one who climbed in all by himself and is sitting in the tree drinking a beer!"

hahaha

Anyway...16h30...no leopard...16h45...still no leopard...I knew from the start that this was a "six or nix" venture. It was either going to show, or it wasn't. I was either going to have my dream image...or I was going back to camp with an empty memory card. I knew we had to get out of there by 17h30 at the latest, as it would be a solid 30-minute drive back to camp at the speed limit of 50km/h.

Gear-wise I had to make a decision. Up to this point I was ready to shoot the action with the Nikon D3s and the Nikkor 500mm f4 VR-II with the Nikon TC-14E 1.4x teleconverter attached. This gave me some much-needed reach towards the position of the tree on my full frame camera body. The problem I was facing was that with sunset approaching and the weather still heavily overcast, I would need to get as much light as possible to reach my camera's sensor when I tripped the shutter. I decided to remove the teleconverter and shoot the 500mm 'wide open' at an aperture of 4 (I had a maximum aperture of 5.6 with the converter attached).

At around 17h00 one of the vehicles a little behind us flashed its headlights and the driver indicated to his right...the leopard must have arrived back there! We had to look hard since there were a few small shrubby trees next to us which obscured the view to the Southwest. Finally we noticed its white belly through the branches. It was lying down under a shrub some distance into the veld. It was SOOO tempting to try and maneuver in reverse to get a glimpse of it, especially considering it might not even approach the tree at all! In the end we decided to hedge our bets on the hope we had cherished all day, and stayed put (besides, if we did move we would lose our vital positioning for the ascent!).

The view of the leopard initially from where we had been parked all afternoon...would you have moved?

The leopard seemed in NO hurry to get up and come towards the tree. One moment it was lying flat on its side. The next moment lifting its head. The next moment yawning. Then lying down flat again...needless to say it was torture...

After what felt like hours, eventually I could see the signs that it was getting up to move. It stood up and walked slowly towards the tree.

The leopard starts its approach. These images are heavily cropped.

It was a young male, probably kicked out by its mother a few months ago and learning to fend for itself and establishing a territory. He did some scent-marking, then proceeded to walk around behind the tree - and guess what?? He lied down again...

17h15. I went ahead and captured some images. I still had to prepare myself mentally for the possibility that he would not climb the tree before we had to turn around and head back for the night. These images came out much better than I expected and this sighting as a whole turned out to be a great test for my Nikon D3s and its famed low-light performance. I had it set on "auto-ISO" and Manual Exposure mode, meaning that I chose the Shutter Speed and Aperture settings I wanted to use, and the camera would select the ISO sensitivity automatically based on the light meter reading and whether I was opting to adjust the exposure compensation bias up or down.

These images are still very heavily cropped - and I was amazed by the detail retained given the crops and the high ISO settings used.

Nikon D3s |  Nikkor 500mm f4 VR-II  |  f4.0  |  1/200 SS  |  ISO-2800

f4.0  |  1/320 SS  |  ISO-4500

f4.0  |  1/200 SS  |  ISO-8000

17h20...I was getting agitated now...why doesn't the leopard want to eat? It hadn't been back at the kill since pre-dawn, and had to be slightly hungry? He even looked longingly up at the impala in the tree at one stage.

17h21...the leopard gets up...adrenaline starts pumping through my veins...this is the moment I had been playing over and over in my mind all day, and all my preparation made and chances taken were now going to culminate in these next few seconds...now to focus on not screwing it up!! 

I quickly metered the light with the camera and took another split-second decision. My chosen shutter speed for the action was 1/400 which was quite slow considering I was using a 500mm focal length (the general rule is you need to have a SS of at least 1/focal-length to get a decently sharp image, though having Nikon's Vibration Reduction technology built into my lens meant I could sacrifice some more). These settings were giving me an ISO of 8000. I wanted to be certain of at least ISO-4000, and therefore decided to half my shutter speed to 1/200. It was a risk! Leopards can climb trees very quickly. If the action was going to happen too fast I would get it all blurry. Then again, having some elements (ideally the paws) slightly blurred would add greatly to the mood/story of the photo. The decision was made for me by the poor quality of light available, and I stuck to my guns and hoped my technique in following the leopard up the tree with the focus point would pull me through. I rotated my camera into the vertical shooting position to get the best framing of the action, and pre-focused on the bark of the tree trunk. I knew that at this focusing distance I should get sufficient depth-of-field this way and it would be easier to keep focus locked during the climb. The D3s would fire at 11 frames per second...how many of those frames would even be usable, if any??

He walks towards the tree!! /things seem to happen in slow-motion and fast-forward at once...it approaches the tree from the right...walks around the front of the tree, all the while looking up at the impala. I had anticipated that he would ascend from the right of the tree since that part of the trunk was sloping towards the left, making it an easier climb. I knew I had seconds before he would jump...and I was as ready as I would ever be...

...breath in... 
...breath out...
...leopard looks up...
...squats down...
...shuffles hind quarters...
...breath in...

and there he goes!!!

f4.0  |  1/200 SS  |  ISO-5000

f4.0  |  1/200 SS  |  ISO-5600

f4.0  |  1/200 SS  |  ISO-5600

f4.0  |  1/200 SS  |  ISO-4000

f4.0  |  1/200 SS  |  ISO-2800

...breath out...!!!

What a rush! A whole day's waiting, hoping, planning came down to 6 or 7 frames of action...

The leopard settled in on top of its quarry and proceeded to start feeding...

f4.0  |  1/200 SS  |  ISO-2800

f4.0  |  1/200 SS  |  ISO-3200

After firing off a few frames of the leopard feeding, I needed to just take a moment to enjoy what we were watching. So often we get caught up in the moment of taking the photographs that we forget to "be there" to witness the natural history taking place, to create memories with our loved ones with us out on safari, and to soak up the feeling of being in the bush. This whole afternoon had come to this...and I loved it! 

17h30...We turned around and headed back to Satara as the rain started pouring down ever so lightly...what a day!

This sighting will probably end up being one of my most memorable ones. Not just because of what we witnessed and the excitement of having a beautiful leopard like this scale a tree out in the open savannah of Africa, but also because of the nature of the sighting. The planning the night beforehand. The visualisation of the shot from the moment I laid eyes on the tree. The waiting, waiting, and more waiting. The thrill of trying to anticipate the leopard's behaviour. The challenge of working in absolutely horrendous light and pushing my technical skills, knowledge and my gear to the limits. And lastly because this was in Kruger....a place I had been coming to since I can remember. A place with so many special memories, and so many surprises around the corner...anything can happen! There are many luxury safari lodges relatively close to where I took this photo, and they will show you leopard sightings you can only dream about...sometimes multiple individual cats on the same day...and though I love being on safaris like that, there's something about getting images like these in a place like Kruger where you have to "make your own luck" that just proves to be ever-so-much-more satisfying...

In the end, it's experiences like THIS that make me want to get back out there in the bush...and see what's around the next bend in the road...

I hope you were inspired by this account...and I certainly hope it wasn't too long-winded. I probably made up for all those quick blog posts of the past few months here.

Anyway - would love your feedback...and if you have similar stories to share, please do so by dropping a comment on this post.

Happy shooting...

Morkel Erasmus

PhotoShare: Double Leopard on the Rocks, please

Hey folks...


I don't know about you but I've had a HECTIC week thus far. I was planning a lengthier blog post for this week but, alas, I am not going to get round to it.


Here is another quick PhotoShare to keep the blog and the images rolling. This leopard mother and daughter (named Mambirri and Mantwane) gave us an amazing few sightings during a short trip in February 2010 to the Sabi-Sands Game Reserve in South Africa. Here the cub, Mantwane, was sitting on a large riverine rock as mom Mambirri passed by. I deliberately used shallow depth-of-field (DOF) by setting the camera's aperture to f4.0 in order to get the mother pin sharp and the cub slightly out-of-focus.


Enjoy, and till next time...

f4.0  //  1/1000 SS  //  ISO-500

Morkel Erasmus

The obsession with eye contact

The last time I blogged, I spoke about "seeing the bigger picture" when you are out taking photos. In the meantime I was privileged to do a guest post for Photo-Africa about the Kgalagadi Transfrontier Park as a safari destination (check it out here) 

I thought it prudent to share more of my thoughts on alternative approaches to wildlife photography. If you frequent various online photography forums (like I do), you will often find the critiques given lamenting the lack of better eye contact and/or a glint in the eye (catchlight). Now while this may be valid in many of the cases, this doesn't mean you should pack away your camera in situations when you're not getting that golden eye contact from your subject. Often while on safari we will be faced with a situation where the most gorgeous animal presents itself, only to spitefully shy away from eye contact with the tourists/photographers.