When showing close family and friends the leopard painting that I've been working on, I was inundated with questions about the extraordinary reference image like never before. To my great delight, its creator, award-winning photographer and zoologist, Marietjie Froneman, graciously agreed to answer a few burning questions...
Q: Where was this photo taken?
A: This was in 2019 in the Kgalagadi on the Mata-Mata road, at the Kamqua water hole. I was alone in a car, coming back from a drive over the dune road and had just turned back onto the main road when I spotted them walking to the water hole.
Q: What equipment did you use? What camera settings did you use?
A: Nikon D5 with a 500mm f4 lens, shot at F7.1. 1/2000 sec.
Q: Do you know what the relationship is between the two leopards?
A: It's a male and a female, other than that I cannot say.
Q: Can you describe the scene leading up to the moment you took the photo? They seem so relaxed - almost un-leopard-like in their boisterousness, out in the open! Did you spend quite a bit of time around them before this interaction happened?
A: They were relatively calm. There was one other car, so not much disturbance. They were rolling in the dust a bit, drank water and then came towards the road and me. So, I guess initially they were about 75m from me at the water hole (although I would be the first to admit my judgement of distance is rather abysmal), and then they walked over the road behind the car. Somewhere in the middle they had this interaction which lasted no more than 30 seconds, and then continued walking again. The whole thing was about 30 minutes.
Q: Do you have a whole series of photos from this interaction, or was this a one-in-a-million kind of shot?
A: Lots of walking and rolling leopards. This interaction was relatively quick so I have more shots of halves of leopards!
Q: Anything that made the sighting particularly special for you?
A: I guess the unexpectedness of it - normally I don't really look out for large animals, I am more interested in birds and the small mammals, so to find two leopards without a million other cars around is quite special.
Q: And a totally random one: What’s your favourite South African creature?
A: Ice rats are my all time favourite South African animal, but I am partial towards all rodents and small mammals. I have worked extensively on ice rats in the lab, they are super friendly and cute.
See the entire creative process of "Frolic" in watercolour in this blog post!
Marietjie and her husband, Albert (also an award-winning wildlife photographer!) share their exquisite work on their website, Instagram and Facebook. Go check them out!
