Growling or laughing?

The lower you can get when photographing animals – even large animals like elephants – the more intimate and dramatic the pictures will be.  Photographing from a Land Rover in Africa makes this difficult because you’re always sitting several feet above the ground, but sometimes the subject is on a small rise and that makes eye-level shooting possible.  With very small and very young animals, low perspectives are especially important to give them greater stature.  When you photograph downward on an animal, it seems like you’re an observer.  With a low point of view, it seems like you are a part of the animal’s world.  I captured this young cheetah cub with a 100-400mm lens and a cropped sensor camera (Canon 7D Mark II) in Namibia, and my settings were 1/1300, f/11, 800 ISO.  More and more, I’m using extra fast shutter speeds to guarantee tack sharp pictures.  I’ve always wondered if this little guy was showing off his bravado with his ferocious expression or maybe laughing at a bad joke about how ugly hyenas are . . .