Snow Leopard, Ladakh - The Story Behind The Shot
- 14 hours ago
- 3 min read
You may wonder why I'm making a big deal of this shot. But when you know that the vast majority of folks return from other snow leopard trips with 3 pixels worth of cat barely discernible in the frame, it does feel remarkable, especially in the circumstances in which it was shot...
For this was no stand-in-line-with-a-hundred-other-photographers situation, drinking chai while massive lenses on tripods are trained on a dot at the top of a mountainside.
This was a true adventure, and a wholly exclusive experience.
More than that, the image is the culmination of a vital new conservation initiative involving skilled tracking, local spotter training and networking, education of local farmers, and the passion and dedication of a talented young Ladakhi man called Imran to bring it all together.
He is the driving force of a sustainable future for snow leopards, lynx and the farming communities that live alongside them in this part of Ladakh.
This was the first time that the new initiative was tested, and the fact that the snow leopard lived and the farmers realised that they don't have to see it as a mortal enemy any more meant it was a success (with or without photos!)
Here's how one of the most challenging shots I've ever taken came to be.
Over breakfast our group received word through the new local network that a snow leopard had been preying on young yaks on farms in the valley. Imran swung into action, contacting the farming families to request they not retaliate and kill the leopard, as has been the case previously, and organising compensation for them.
Our team of spotters and trackers were on the case in no time, following the cat's trail. Eventually we got word that he was sleeping in dense woodland at the bottom of the valley.
We piled into 4x4 vehicles and drove as far as we could go, then fought our way through thorn-infested brush, hauling each other and our gear up and then sliding down the other side of vertical slopes, and helping each other as a team to reach the valley floor.
There was a single, extremely narrow angle of view - above a stone wall and through 10 metres of dense trees and bushes - to where the cat was sheltering. The light was awful, he was so well hidden deep in this tangle of bush that his backside was the only part brightly lit enough to focus on, and for fairness each photographer was allocated only 40 seconds to try and get a shot.
It took all my experience of photographing wildlife in challenging situations to navigate these issues:
most importantly breathe, assess and don't panic
select f/2.8 to try and separate him from the surrounding mess of branches
crank the ISO as high as I dare, to keep the shutter speed high enough for my 400mm lens not to blur out
when autofocus on the face fails, try focussing on his backside and then manually fine-tune on the eyes.
...and click!
The reward is this close up portrait, crafted in seconds but the product of years of work by everyone involved in the expedition team, to whom I owe my thanks for such good fortune.
I must stress there are no promises that you will ever get this close to a snow leopard on this trip - but it is proof that anything can happen here!
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