It's not so much the brilliant technical proficiency of your photos that is breathtaking - although the lighting and the sharpness are never anything other than wonderful - as your ability to 'get' such brilliant poses from your subjects. To do this once or twice might be seen as lucky; to do it repeatedly says great things about your patience, timing, aesthetic vision and knowledge of the animals you are photographing. Thank you, as always, for sharing such cracking pictures...
Thank you so much, @sooty mangabey, for those very kind words - it's really good to know that the photos are appreciated, despite some of them being of individuals which I've shot and posted here several times before, and thus which I suspect will bore some of the forum visitors. As I don't visit that many zoos, some repetition is always likely. In those cases, I do try to show a different view or behaviour to those which I've posted previously. This was the case here, with the pair of rusties seemingly almost flying around their exhibit a short while after having been fed, checking for missed scraps of food. Being so fast and agile, they seemed to be everywhere, all at once , making them quite tricky subjects for sure.
Even if the subjects are exhibiting basically the same behaviour as previously seen, I still never tire of photographing the same animals repeatedly on successive visits - I think I enjoy the challenge of trying to improve on my previous shots, perhaps discovering a different angle here, or better lighting there. . .
I definitely have bucketloads of patience, often making several return visits to enclosures at different times of day in the hope of more interesting subject positioning, lighting, etc. Familiarity with my camera equipment and having it ready to shoot all the while during a zoo visit helps capture some of those unexpected moments of activity. Although, believe me, I have plenty of failures too! Even this shot I would probably class as a failure, as I would have preferred some separation between the head of the cat and the branch. Still, there's always next time! Thanks again.
I understand your comment about rusty spotted cats flying around. When I saw them active at feeding time at Parc Felins - they are truly hyperactive. I mean really it looks like they are on speed (the drug) or something.
