Capturing the Perfect Mountain Lion Shot, a Picture 12 Months in the Making
I aspire to someday have that much skill and grasp of resources to use. That’s my hat, tipping.
At times, wildlife photographers have to show an incredible amount of patience to get the perfect shot. Wild animals (much like humans, actually) rarely do exactly what you want them to, and when they do, you and your camera have to be prepared.
But still, how long could you possibly have to wait? Hours? Days? Weeks maybe? For Nat Geo photographer Steve Winter — who was chasing the perfect shot of a Mountain Lion with the lights of Los Angeles in the background — that patience had to extend a full year.
If you’re wondering why it took so long, one of the reasons might be that there is only one mountain lion in the world that lives in a place that would make this photo possible. The elusive cougar, named P-22, is a 125-pound 4-year-old that has quite miraculously made his home in Griffith Park, where researchers caught and tagged him.
When Winter found out about P-22, however, he had a different kind of capture in mind: he set about trying to photograph him. And in the end, he succeeded:
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