In early 2019, I released my first images of a black leopard in Kenya. It was not only the most stunning creature I had ever photographed, it was also the rarest by far. You can read the story of how I captured those first images in this blog post.

However, the project did not end there. For a period of time, I knew where I could find an African black leopard and I was keen to make the most of this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. It wasn’t long before I was back in Kenya with ambitions to expand my portfolio of images.

For more than a decade I have increasingly specialised in photographing wildlife at night. This has sometimes involved improvising and making up new techniques on the fly, such as this early example from 2008. As the available equipment limited my ability to capture images the way I wanted, I developed my own specialist devices, such as the remote-control BeetleCam and my Camtraptions camera traps.

Photographing animals with stars in the sky in a single exposure became one of my obsessions. My star pictures (such as the example below from 2013) offered a rarely seen perspective — a glimpse into a night-time kingdom where nocturnal creatures such as hyenas, leopards and lions were in their true element.

Photos combining animals with stars are quite challenging to achieve. It took six weeks to get a handful of images of hyena and lions under the stars in Zambia (as featured in this blog post) — and those animals were easy to find. It took a full month to get a single star photograph of a black rhino in a sanctuary full of rhinos (as described in this blog post). If it took that much effort to get photos with those animals, could I ever hope to achieve it with the rarest and most elusive creature I’ve ever encountered? An animal that embodies the night more than any other I can think of…

A photo of a black leopard under the stars would be both the rarest and most difficult wildlife photo I had attempted to date. My ambition was clear, but my chances of achieving my dream photograph were far from certain.

For this new phase of the project, the team was much smaller. Luisa Ancilotto – on whose property the leopard mostly resided – generously facilitated the entire endeavour by hosting me and allowing me free-reign to deploy my camera traps.

Luisa’s team from the local community, in particular Muhammad Parasulan and Patrick Lempejo, helped me find new locations for my cameras, with clear views of the night sky. They also kept my lenses clean and cameras running when I wasn’t around.

At any one time, I now had between five and seven camera traps deployed, and most of them were set up to capture the star shot.

To make my life more difficult, it seemed the black leopard was now roaming further afield as he avoided a bigger male and sought out a safe territory of his own. He passed by my camera traps much less frequently than in the early days which greatly reduced my opportunities. The big spotty male on the other hand was often around.

It only took a couple of weeks before I had captured the photo I had envisaged — except it featured the wrong leopard! Nevertheless, it is possibly my favourite photo of a spotty leopard to date and so I wasn’t too disappointed.

Thereafter, weeks turned to months without another successful star photo. For the image to work, many factors needed to come together. Firstly, of course, it needed to be a clear night. But as the rainy season took hold, it became increasingly common for clouds to blot out the sky completely. This led to some atmospheric images albeit not exactly what I was hoping for.

It was also important that the night was very dark, with no moon or twilight to lighten the sky. To reveal stars, an exposure time of at least 15 seconds was necessary. The flashes would go off at the start of the exposure to illuminate the leopard before it moved off. Thereafter, as long as the background behind the leopard remained dark, the image would work. However, if there was ambient moonlight to lighten the background, the animal would appear translucent. Here is an image that demonstrates the effect, although, in this case, I rather like the ethereal cat emerging from the night; for me it is a photo that conveys the essence of the ghost-like leopard.

Another infuriating factor was the black leopard’s cooperation — or rather lack thereof! I wanted head-on shots so that meant when the animal passed by my camera I had a 50-50 chance of either seeing his face or backside. Several times the other conditions were perfect, but the leopard passed by in the wrong direction. Without the leopard’s piercing eyes in view, he was almost invisible in the final picture!

Other animals could also be uncooperative. I set up one of my cameras on a rocky outcrop on Suyian Ranch with spectacular views out over Laikipia. My aim was to get an image that captured the essence of this land of leopards. Here is a behind-the-scenes image of camera trap set-up:

Within a few days the camera captured this photo of a young leopard at dusk.

However, shortly thereafter, a troop of naughty baboons discovered the camera and comprehensively dismantled it.

 
Eventually, after six months of perseverance, I returned to a cluster of three cameras I had set up on a promising rock. One of the cameras was an infrared DSLR which I had just set up to capture a behind-the-scenes picture. On it, I found this image…

I eagerly checked the remaining cameras and, on the lower of the two cameras, I had the following two images (the first image was taken at the same moment as the behind-the-scenes picture above).

As the skies cleared in July, I also captured one more star photo; the black leopard prowling under a carpet or stars…

Some of these images and many other never-before-seen pictures of the leopard appear in my new book, The Black Leopard, out now! Hand-signed copies are available here and additional purchase options listed here.

The Black Leopard: My Quest to Photograph One of Africa’s Most Elusive Big Cats – Out now!
 

I would like to end by thanking everyone in Laikipia who helped me to photograph this beautiful animal. Firstly, Luisa Ancilotto, Mohammed Parasulan, Patrick Lempejo, Evelyne Wanjiru, Pauline Catherine Wambui, Komit Roitii Ponut, Sinkan Kiloku, Jonathan Lekishon, Peter Parasulan, Simon Itodo and Peterson Maina for supporting me every day for more than a year as I worked on this project. Thanks to Steve Carey, Annabelle Carey and the team at Laikipia Wilderness Camp for backing my project in the early days. Thank you to Ambrose Letoluai and Nick Pilfold for sharing their research with me and for their valuable work as champions for Laikipia’s leopards. Thanks to Anne Powys and the team at Suyian Soul for helping me in the later stages of the project. Finally, I would like to thank everyone in Nairobi and at home for the support that facilitates all of my projects, plus my publishers, Blackwell & Ruth and Chronicle for encouraging me and helping me to write the book. This project has been a real team effort and I am truly grateful to all who have helped me on this journey.