Field Notes
The cheetah is built for a single, brief purpose, and everything about it — the slight frame, the long legs, the dark tear-lines below the eyes — speaks of speed held in reserve.
I have photographed cheetahs on the short-grass plains of the Masai Mara, where they favour open ground and low mounds that give them a view across the grassland. Unlike the other big cats, the cheetah hunts by day, which makes it one of the few large predators you can watch actively working in good light.
My most memorable moments have not been the chases but the stillness before them — a cheetah sitting upright, scanning the horizon, utterly focused. The photograph I want is that concentration: the quiet arithmetic of a hunter measuring distance.
