"Watching a leopard lying graciously in a tree with its legs dangling from a branch has been a moment I have always been eager to witness since my very first visit to Kenya. On that first visit, I spent a few nights in the Maasai Mara, and we did not have a sighting of a leopard, but what my guide said to me certainly had a profound effect. He told me that those who do not see a leopard on their first trip are destined to return. It couldn’t have been more accurate as I returned at the very next opportunity, and now a few years later, I am writing this from my home in Kenya.
The leopard is one of the most elusive cats on the continent, and they say you should never look for one because you only find one when they want you to. This is the magic of spending time in the bush. My trips are often solely focused on one species or even one particular individual animal, but a leopard is a special animal to photograph because they are rarely seen. Every time I have seen one, I have stumbled across it unexpectedly, making every moment one to cherish."
A Leopard's Dream, Maasai Mara, Kenya
20% of sales goes to support The Mara Elephant Project
Available sizes
18" x 24.56" Edition of 15
30" x 40.93" Edition of 10
40" x 54.57 Edition of 5
"Wildlife fine art photographer and conservationist, James Lewin, is entirely self-taught and first became interested in photography whilst in Kenya. He chooses to take black and white photographs using a wide-angled lens and shoots from a low level set against a dramatic background. This approach accentuates the magnitude of his subjects, most usually African wildlife. James has held his own fundraising events whilst also donating prints to charity auctions. In 2018, at the National History Museum in London, his photograph ‘The Big Friendly Giant’ raised just over £4,000 at auction in aid of The Whitley Fund for Nature. Several of James’s photographs have been shortlisted for the final round of judging in the Wildlife Photographer of the Year and in 2019, his photograph ‘The Baron of Borana’ received an Honourable Mention in The Monochrome Awards. He has won a number of other awards (Outdoor Photographer of the Year, BBC Wildlife and The Neutral Density Awards). Alongside his love of photography, James is an ardent conservationist and donates a proportion of his profits to conservation charities to ensure the protection of the animals he photographs. The big tusker elephants are particularly close to his heart. James's photographs are offered as archival pigment prints (the most commonly used among professional photographers), silver gelatin (the gold standard in black and white printing which surpasses archival pigment prints in longevity, quality and detail) and platinum palladium (these prints are made in a darkroom with photo chemistry and have the very best archival rating of any print - the image is embedded into the fibres of the paper, as opposed to an archival pigment print where the inks are sprayed onto the surface)."
