AFRICA AT ITS BEST
A friend and I anticipated that an expected snowstorm late in August might make for a once-in-a-lifetime photo opportunity. We drove from Cape Town to Sutherland in the Karoo, where we’d arranged with Rogge Cloof private reserve to try and photograph one of their cheetahs. There are very few photographs of cheetahs in snow – we were lucky, the predicted dump arrived on cue!
The reserve has a small population of cheetah – just five – and they are all collared, although they roam and hunt freely. We were able to track a female called Mona, with assistance from Rogge Cloof’s field guide, under challenging weather conditions. We found Mona with a recent springbok kill, which sustained her during the storm and after.
During the hour we spent with Mona, a fresh 10 cm of snow fell. My lenses froze over many times, my lens hoods filled with snow and I had no usable viewfinder. Shooting was very difficult, even using live view. I took this photo handheld using my Nikon D850, with a Sigma 120 – 300 mm lens. My settings: shutter speed 1/1 000 second; aperture f8; ISO 2 000. It was almost 6 pm and the sun was about to set, hence the high ISO. Also, it was -7° C by then!