Nature & Animals….. - HereNow4U.net

Animal Crusaders • Commemorative Issue • October 2010The moment…. and the glory!In the Masai Mara, Kenya, end ofAugust 2009, after photographingthe crossing of the wilderbeasteand zebra, at a particular point ofthe Mara river, and with thesavage attacks on them bycrocodiles, I was returning backto camp in an open land roverwhen my driver, who with hisbinocular vision, pointed out aleopard with its kill on the higherbranches of a tree hundreds andhundreds of yards away. As theland rover slowly approached thetree to within a hundred yards,this leopard got visibly agitatedby my presence and decided todescend from its tree branch andseek the sanctuary of another treeelsewhere. I was shooting a NikonD3X with a 600 mm Nikon lensand I filmed a sequence ofphotographs of the leopardgathering its kill in its mouth,climbing down the tree (theaward winning photograph) andcome running, funnily enough,right towards my land rover andpass me with the kill in its mouth– a total of about may be a dozenframes.I had been fortunate enough tosee leopards climbing up a treewith their kill and also eating theirkill in the branches of the tree –in fact in the Sabi Sands area inSouth Africa, I photographed alarge male leopard directly frommy open land rover perhaps 12feet directly above me, gorgingon its impala kill, while the hyenas,scavenged, around my vehicleswaiting for the crumbs to fall – infact I had to lie down on thefloorboard of the land rover tophotograph.With enough time and luck onemay see leopards climbing up orin the branches of the trees withtheir kill, but to see and alsophotograph a leopard comingdown the tree with its kill isextremely rare and photographicopportunity to be taken withouta moment’s hesitation.– Babi Nobis© Babi NobisMy photograph “Leopardwith kill” has won theIndividual Silver medalworldwide as well as theIndian Team Entry Goldmedal in 15th Biennial FIAP(Division of UNESCO) WorldCup Photography.The Nature Biennale WorldCup organised by FIAP — theParis-based InternationalFederation of PhotographicArt — is one of the mostprestigious global events innature photography. Over850 photographs andprojected images from over570 of the world’s leadingamateur naturephotographers competed fortop honours at the event. Aninternational panelcomprising Jacky Martinfrom France, Ricardo Bussifrom Italy, Jill Sneesby fromSouth Africa and two Indians— B Srinivasa and T N APerumal — were the judges.A good snapshot stops a moment from running away. ~Eudora Welty11