Cheetahs are medium sized cats, and when photographing them from a safari vehicle in which the photographer sits several feet above the ground, cheetahs don't seem imposing because the lens angle is downward. I've always wanted to shoot from ground level, but of course that's impossible in Africa when predators are near. The best case scenario to give these beautiful cats stature is to photograph them on a termite mount when they are elevated. That's what you see here. The sunrise lighting is an added bonus, but the fact that the cat was standing a several feet above the ground and my telephoto was angled upward is what makes this shot successful. Notice how the color in the eyes stand out because the low sun illuminated them perfectly. My settings were 1/1250, f/10, and 400 ISO.
0 Comments