Michael Wilkins
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Black and white photograph of a white lion lying in dense scrub, staring directly at the camera through a screen of branches and leaves that break up the frame.

Through the Thicket

Pumba Game Reserve, South Africa · December 2022

1D X Mark II, 400 millimetres, f 5.6, 1/500 of a second, ISO 800

He saw me a long time before I saw him.

He was lying up in thick scrub in the middle of the day and I nearly drove past him. What makes the frame is the screen of branches — you are looking through something at an animal that has already found you, which is much closer to how it actually feels out there than a clean portrait ever is. Monochrome because the tangle was a mess of greens that pulled the eye everywhere except his face.