If you’ve ever been on an African safari you probably know this feeling when you see one of those elusive leopards for the first time in the wild. You’ll never forget this moment. And of course, you took a picture. After all, the leopard is one of the Big Five, one of those “must see and must photograph” animals when on safari. The featured image in this blog post, you guessed it, shows the first leopard we ever saw in the wild.

Is it a good image?

Well, it’s ok. Just. The eyes of the leopard are sharp. That’s important whenever the subject has eyes, no matter whether it’s an animal or a person. However, the background ist not very attractive, the blurred foreground is not ideal either and the light ist unispirational. But the image shows the natural habitat of the leopard and how well the cat blends into its surroundings. In this respect it is a reasonable documentary picture. It probably won’t win any prizes. But it will stay in our archive. After all there are memories attached to this picture.

Do we have better pictures of leopards in the wild?

After we spend a lot more time in the African bush we indeed do have much better pictures than the one above.

Photo of an african leopard standing in tall grass in the morning light in the Okavango Delta, Botswana, Africa

Wunderful light, a dark background and a much more natural setting set this picture apart from the featured image. It takes a lot of time and a bit of luck. But then the results are very satisfying.