Sharp as gemstone. Tough as tempered steel. What’s it like to have the eyes of a leopard looking right through the camera at you?  Or to focus on the sleek frame of a leopard wading across a river at nightfall complete with a golden rippling reflection?  How about gunning the shutter when one of these stunning spotted cats gracefully jumps a pool of water with a tree squirrel snack clamped between her jaws. Or when a relaxed mother allows her little dotty cub to suckle just metres from your vehicle?  Being there ready to go ‘click’.

All of the above were among the stand-out moments shared with guests on our latest photo safari – a trip devised with the photography of these elusive big cats as its prime objective  and during which we had the privilege of visiting two of the top spots in Africa for getting close to, and spending time with, these safari A-listers.

We began our adventure on Mashatu. An unexpected encounter with a large, handsome male leopard early on our very first game drive got us underway nicely. A big guy we’ve been fortunate to see a few times on our visits there. We found him sitting prominently among the sage bushes stopping us dead in our tracks when we were on a mission to check out a cheetah mum with four almost fully-grown cubs. Delayed by this bonus ‘introductory’ leopard we still got to the cheetahs in perfect time to secure some strong silhouette shots that showcased the amazing sunset colours that afternoon.

Over the coming days we were treated to many more such rewarding leopard meet-ups. Top moments included a morning photographing one  of our favourite Mashatu leopards – Motswiri – and her 10 month-old cub. We found them finishing up an impala kill and stayed until they eventually found a safe place to rest for the day. But that was not before Mothaba the playful youngster had burned some energy ferociously ambushing his mother on a dead leadwood tree. This was not the last we were to see of this brave and restless young chap. We spent a further, fabulous morning with him when he embarked on a voyage of discovery climbing up and down trees and testing his boundaries by exploring beyond the area he usually hung out. His gradual ‘pawhold’ on greater independence was fascinating to observe and netted our guests a variety of excellent portrait, behaviour and action captures.

Other notable sightings included the day we found a different female leopard grappling with a guinea fowl she’d taken down just seconds before; her jaws packed full of feathers. Then there was the above-mentioned river jumper complete with squirrel followed soon after by a stunning female called Lerato (meaning love) we’d not seen before, who posed perfectly for some beautiful high-key and low-key photo opportunities.

With quality leopard photography our focus it was hard tearing ourselves away from the many individuals we were seeing regularly and well. By now we were getting to know their traits, gaits and characters. (Split into two groups we each respectively photographed seven and eight different individual leopards over the eight days we were there).  But the new overnight hide on the reserve was beckoning.

Given Mashatu experienced considerable flooding this year following an extremely wet rainy season we were not expecting a busy night of photography. Despite these tricky conditions and the ‘newness’ of the hide there were still some very good pictures to be had. Both groups were treated to several visits from the local jackals and spotted hyenas after dark (both species often difficult to photograph well on game drives). One group even had two visits from elephants during the night  – always exciting to experience and photograph. In the morning the plains game and plentiful vociferous guinea fowl kept trigger fingers busy until we were collected by our guides.

Lion photography was mainly focused on two females and their three sub-adult cubs. The main pride has split into two since our last visit and the males were lying low. Our encounters with Mashatu’s famed elephants were plentiful on the other hand, with photography centred on their visits to the river to drink, in particular, their wonderfully dusty descents down the steep banks – including, memorably, sliding down the steeper slopes on their backsides at one point.

All too soon we were heading out of Botswana en route for South Africa and our next destination – the world-renowned MalaMala reserve – also famous for great leopard sightings. Its prime location on the Sand river, a magnet for wildlife, means game drives there, as on Mashatu, are also pretty full-on.

So much so that on our first afternoon after some enjoyable lion cub photography we found ourselves spotlighting a female leopard crossing the Sand river in the dark. High-octane photography indeed involving the quick switching up of our settings as our guides got us in place with just seconds to spare. It was a thrilling introduction to the daily diet of super-successful leopard tracking. We never drove far to find our quarry – whether suddenly crossing paths with  young males that hadn’t been ‘spotted’ for a while or following up on the well-known, more chilled females the guides regularly come face to face with.

Once again highlights were many. We even got another river crossing – this time in daylight.  We photographed leopards posing on rocks, on termite mounds, on kills and ascending/descending trees; getting plenty of chances to practise the leopard photography skills we’d honed on Mashatu – and again off-roading to get close.

One group had a real treat when having located a female up a tree on a kill she suddenly came down, called her cub unexpectedly and let it suckle right by them. MalaMala has a policy of only one vehicle per sighting when there are cubs so, sadly, we couldn’t call our other group to join in. As the others were the fortunate ones on Mashatu getting action shots of the leopard jumping over the water in the riverbed everyone concluded the the luck had balanced out in the end.

Our leopard focus on MalaMala was occasionally interspersed with more sightings of lions, including the cute cubs we’d seen on the first day and some backlighting opportunities, and an amazing afternoon with a wild dog pack where the alpha female was heavily pregnant and the pack members were clearly revved up for the imminent event. Then, having being kept awake all night by some extremely loud caterwauling at the end of our trip, we found the source of the bruhaha on our last morning. Lions had been squabbling noisily over the carcass of an elephant that had died close to camp. Checking up on them after our final leopard encounter on the reserve we finally came face to face with some male lions. There they were at last, bloodied, bruised and bloated…and still at the ready to defend their mammoth meal.

It had all been a ‘helluva’ lot to digest – and not just for the lions!

As is customary we can’t sign off before thanking those who made all the fun and photography possible. The friendly lodge staff at both reserves were on top form and our guides Judas and Goms (and spotters Abel and Albert) on Mashatu, and Mike and Mrisho at MalaMala were not only great company but excelled at finding us brilliant subjects and getting us in pole position to photograph them.

Our guests were a truly great crew, making our job a cinch with their easy-going approach. Thanks to LS, who we’ve put down for next year’s Olympic gymnastics given the ability, if not quite agility, to exit the game vehicle every time while performing the splits, to chief vet J ‘the hat’ S for shunning all that ‘roller-mania’, to AC who should definitely grab a cuppa and put together that panel, to craft-meister and zen-master DR for services to ostrich egg restoration, to self-doubter AR for keeping focus when all around him were distracted (most of the time) and last but not least (although almost always late) to BF – well, it had to be you bringing up the rear. Thanks to all. We had a blast.