Bad Boys

Sometimes things just work out and when you have options it’s just so much better.

Yesterday morning we spent almost two hours with a pride of lions consisting of two large males, two females and five cubs of about 4 months of age.  Great sighting which included lions feeding on a wildebeest, lions roaring, cubs playing, females smacking males and the list just goes on.  What made things even better is that all of this took place in the early morning sun which meant we had fantastic light to work with.  Every now and then a lone cloud would drift across the sun which left us with a golden, diffused light before the direct light would come through again.  Stunning light with which to photograph wildlife.

The lions were literally all over the place which gave us the opportunity to move around and position ourselves to make the best use of the changing light conditions.  We filled up quite a few memory cards and what was specifically nice was that, after we had a number of solid image, we could start playing around and experiment with different angles, exposures and compositions.  In wildlife photography a well exposed, clean and technically sound image is always on the top of the list but there is always room for images that are sightly different.  Images that make you look twice or draw you in because of that special something.

Out of all the hundreds of images I shot two stood out because of that something.  The first was an image of the two males who were in the process of giving each other a bit of brotherly love as they licked and cuddled after their breakfast.  These to guys have a bit of a reputation as bad boys due to their temper and history of fighting and injuring other males in ‘negotiations’ about territory.  You might also recall a post I did last week called Heavyweight Fight which showed two males lions having a full on go at each other. Same two males, so to see these two large cats get cozy again was a great sighting.

Shot during one of the cloudy moments, for me there are three things that make this image stand out.  The tongues, the way the male on the right is looking at his brother and single open eye on the other male.  Your gaze keeps on moving between these three elements and what also helps is the diagonal lines created by both the lions heads leading down to the tongue.

One of the other images that stood out for me was one of three future bad boys.  Well from what we could see at this young age I think they were all boys.

These cubs, and there two other siblings, were in serious play mode which kept out shutters working overtime.  The three youngsters had just finished attacking each other when suddenly, as if a referee blew a whistle, they all stopped and started off in their own direction.  I shot this specific image just before their breakup and when I looked at the series of images afterwards it was the repetition of tails that caught my eye.  I did crop the image slightly during post processing and in this situation I felt quite comfortable placing the group of youngsters in the middle of the frame as there is a lot happening due not only to the tails but also the implied movement by the one cub and stare of the front one.  Not (exactly) planned like that but worked out great!

Whether you like it or not, luck remains a huge part of wildlife photography but you still have to make sure you pay attention to the basics in order for that luck to help you to create images with that little something extra.

Will be back with another post which includes a few new images that have been uploaded to the Photo-Africa Stock Library and more details on tomorrow’s guest post.

See ya later!

Gerry