ENTRY DESCRIPTION
One particularly wet summer, we spent Christmas holidays in the Masai Mara, Kenya. We chose to spend time with the Black Rock Lion Pride that had many females and cubs ranging from tiny fur balls to active toddlers. Watching the pride was great but things got magical when it started to rain.
Rain not only seems to bring out great depth of emotion in big cats, but also offers us the opportunity to get creative with both photography settings and processing. It was interesting to watch the different reactions to rain. While some of the cubs welcomed the rain and continued their play with renewed vigour, others tried to seek shelter close to their moms. The mums in turn sought shelter where they could in the open savannah surrounded by massive black boulders. What struck us however, was this one mother and cub pair who seemed to be immune to all the activity around them. They stayed put and with great calm, accepted the drops of rain that fell on them like blessings from above. In the fast fading light, their silhouette, rim lit by the setting sun, underlined their fortitude and showed a stoic, solid presence against the droplets that pelted them.
We photographed this image backlit against a dark background and under-exposed in camera and in processing, to tell this story through rim lighting and stark contrast. As is usually the case, we tried to get a low as possible in our vehicle to get a better point of view on the subject.

AUTHOR
We are Preeti and Prashant Chacko, photo artists working together as @composingthewild. Our passion lies in showcasing animals in the wild, in black and white. We believe that wild animals are beautiful, sentient beings brimming with stature, grace, sensitivity and strength. Our aim is to portray these qualities in our work. After years of photography, we have understood that the photos that we truly love are the ones that conveyed beauty and emotion, artistically.

We want our audience to engage with our work on an emotional level, to have personal and deep responses to our images and the wild animals we portray. Our artistic approach is rooted in the belief that people protect what they find beautiful. We are careful not to perpetuate the stereotype of wild animals as dangerous or aggressive. Instead, we focus on capturing their sensitivity and human-like emotions, hoping to foster empathy and a desire to protect wildlife.

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