Amur Leopards are extremely endangered: only 40-80 are left in the wild. They are absolutely beautiful leopards :)
Amur Leopards are extremely endangered: only 40-80 are left in the wild. They are absolutely beautiful leopards :)
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Awards
Contest Finalist in Wildlife Portraits Photo Contest
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Contest Finalist in Covers Photo Contest Vol 25
Contest Finalist in Monthly Pro Vol 14 Photo Contest
Contest Finalist in Animal Eyes Photo Contest
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nandicmb
September 21, 2015
Congratulations on your Conest Finalist win in Monthly Pro Vol 14 Photo Contest!
KatieMcKinneyPhotography
November 05, 2015
Love this! Beautiful lighting & you captured a one of a kind expression here, well done!
zquentin
November 06, 2015
Thank you very much wildorchidphotography!! He is a beautiful model :) One of my all-time favorite pictures
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Behind The Lens
Location
I took this photo in a summer wildlife workshop in Kalispell, MT. The workshops are conducted on privately owned land. The reality is that amur leopards are the rarest big cats in the world: their number is around 80 to 100 in the wild in Siberia, Russia and China!! It is pretty much impossible to see them in the wild sadly. The other option to see them is in some zoos.Time
The picture was taken in June a little before 8 am. It is not typical to shoot that late in the morning but the area where the leopard was got the morning sun later than other places.Lighting
It was a beautiful sunny morning and the quality of the light was great. The amur leopard just stopped and posed for a second, looking right into the camera. The sun cast a golden glow on the leopard's face.Equipment
I used my Canon 7D Mark II with the Canon 70-200 2.8 L IS II USM lens. This shot was taken hand held. The 70-200 lens is an amazing portrait lens and it worked really well for this shot.Inspiration
My favorite area is wildlife photography and I absolutely love big and small cats! I will take any chance to photograph cats. Sadly, there are so many cat species that are critically endangered. One could spend decades in the wild and never see one of these magnificent cats... So this workshop was an amazing opportunity to see and photograph an amur leopard. I am also trying to raise awareness about these endangered species through my photography.Editing
I used Adobe Lightroom to make some basic adjustments: lens profile correction, cropping, lifting the shadows in the picture. In Photoshop, I worked on some noise reduction for the background.In my camera bag
For wildlife photography trips, I take my Canon 5D III and 7D II. I have the Canon 70-200 2.8 II and the 100-400 II with me all the time. On occasion, when I need more reach, I pack my Canon 200-400 lens as well. It has a built-in 1.4 extender. I take my tripod with the Jobu gimball head. When I go out to shoot landscape, I have the same camera bodies but I also take my Canon 24-70 2.8 L II USM.Feedback
This was a relatively easy shot because the leopard stopped and posed for a second like a professional model. Also, there was plenty of beautiful light. Go out to shoot at sunrise or before sunset - take advantage of the golden hour because it really makes portraits special! The challenge with animals that have dark and light colored fur is trying to keep all the detail in the light fur. Use exposure compensation to make sure that all the detail is there in the picture. Watch the background! Keep it as simple as possible by avoiding distractions or using a shallow depth of field to blur it.