Walking straight at the vehicle, unbothered, until the head filled the frame. Those dark lines running from the eyes down to the mouth are functional — they cut sun glare the way an athlete's face paint does — but they also draw every line in the picture back to the eyes, which is why a cheetah portrait works front-on and almost nothing else does. Long lens, wide open, no crop.

Straight Down the Barrel
Pumba Game Reserve, South Africa · December 2022
1D X Mark II, 330 millimetres, f 5.6, 1/1000 of a second, ISO 500