From mid-morning Leopards climb trees to escape the pounding African heat. Usually they have already hunted and taken the kill up the tree where after eating they try to rest. The average male Leopard can weigh up to about 60kgs. It's been estimated that they can lift a kill weighing 90kgs up the tree. Hard work after a tiring chase! The Botswana light is intense but under the canopy of a lead-wood tree there is some relief for them. As a wildlife photographer, in order to achieve some detail in the shade you have to shoot Manual or Semi-Auto and overexpose by 2/3rds of a stop or so. Naturally the sky becomes a white studio backdrop.
This was an interesting challenge. I really think few people chose their absolute "best for DPC" image in their collections. I chose the one I like the most due the moment of the shot. The voting was extremely flat. 260 entries and 150 odd votes, what's with that? From 1st place to my 74th there is only a drop of 0.8 points.
Thank you all for the awesome comments. Black and White Wildlife is how I began, with Ilford film (XP) and my own darkroom.
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Place: 73 out of 264 Avg (all users): 6.2157 Avg (commenters): 7.7500 Avg (participants): 6.2564 Avg (non-participants): 6.0833 Views since voting: 1059 Views during voting: 248 Votes: 153 Comments: 10 Favorites: 0
Beautiful and amazing capture and B&W conversion. Really love the texture. Looks like you had a hard time controlling the brightness of the sky against what I assume was a lot darker area where the kitty is.
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