The Smothering

I am personally glad that you have continued the series thru to this one. As you said, its the natural cycle, and you have captured it in a professional and moving way. It is something that i could not share in without you sharing your images, at least not until I have saved a few more sheckles to book one of your tours.

Your position afforded an excellent view of the kill. Can't really tell if the eland is alive from this one still. I'm sure my heart would be racing had I been witness to this life and death situation.
Contrast on the subjects might benefit from a slight bump perhaps. So handy to be able to use iso 2000 to freeze the action and still have great image quality.

Thanks Don and Gary.

@Don - would be great showing you scenes like this (obviously a repeat of this one is never guaranteed )

@Gary - many have bayed for more contrast on this shot, I have already boosted it significantly but as with all the others in this series I processed with a view of keeping with the soft morning light combined with white dust that still lingered from the chase as I remember the conditions from that morning.

Really interesting predation capture Morkel, love the low angle. Nice one!

Awesome frame from terrific sequence!
Jagdeep Rajput

Excellent view. I like this. The only tweak I would experiment with might be to enhance warmth just a little, but it is effective as presented.

Well, I don't think anyone can call this boring Morkel!

Excellent detail and nice soft light and muted colors here. If I really try to nit-pick I would say that the green patch appearing from behind the lion on the left. Open eyes would have been nice too, but you can't have it all. You were lucky this happened right in the open riverbed. On my last two relatively recent visits to KTP I saw many Eland carcasses, but not a single life one, really remarkable.

I would like to add that your remark about wildlife photographers craving for these kind of shots/opportunities does not apply to all; personally I am not after these kind of killing/feeding shots. Instead I would much rather have a 'beautiful' image that could be used for a wall hanger. Not that I would not shoot such a scene and of course I love to see this kind of action. Therefore, thanks for sharing this cool image.

Contrary to some comments, I'd love to (die for) images involving killing, hunting, fighting... lots of action! This is spectacular, Morkel. The lion has moved from the neck, where he has finished his job of killing the eland, and onto the soft abdomen and is intent on tearing it open. The only thing I'd do is to increase the saturation a bit; both predator and prey look a little too pale, probably due to the dust, though.

Thank you all for your kind comments.
I appreciate that this might not be a "wall hanger" per se, but anyone who's photographed kills knows that it's hard to captured something of this phenom in a tasteful manner as there's usually too much blood and gore for the general viewer. I think I've done that here in a way that can be presented to most people without them cringing as much .

Very dramatic, the low perspective really helps make this shot. I am always hoping for this type of image when I go to Yellowstone to see wolves, and yes, it is not really a wall hanger, but awesome non the less. I may never get to Africa, so thanks for sharing.